Choices, intentionality
May. 24th, 2004 03:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wispfoxEchoy brain. Apparently I wasn't done in the last post.
Doing things intentionally...
In my life, nothing 'just happens'.
Not in the larger sense, at least - things over which I have no control certainly do just happen. But nothing which entails a major state change in my own life just happens. Not anymore.
Becoming aware that major state changes are possible does tend to just happen, although there are usually signs leading toward it, if I'm paying attention. But acting on it is a conscious decision. It has to be. Nothing else is healthy for me. I don't regret choices I have made - once I make a choice, I let it go. I regret ones I did not make; things I had no control over, or things where my choice ended up being to not make a conscious choice.
The closest I get to things that 'just happen' is the fact that I may not realize that I am in love with someone until I it has happened. But even _that_ takes time, and huge amounts of interaction, and energy. And I have to, at least at some level, be willing to let it happen. I don't fall in love with someone I don't know. I _can't_. I don't even have crushes on people I don't know at least to some degree - and have never understood how anyone could. So even with falling in love, there is a choice, in being willing to get to know specific people better, in seeking out their company, and investigating their minds, spirits, selves, knowing who they _are_. And, there are still other choices. Acting on it, or not. Being aware of it, or not.
Everything I do is about choices. Do I want something, or do I not? Even waiting is a choice, and one I make when the end result seems worth it.
Almost everything that has happened to me without being a conscious choice of mine was a mistake. Something I learned from, but not a good thing in itself. Sometimes I fell into bad (or truly terrible, in some cases) relationship situations. Sometimes I was hurt, and hurt _badly_. Sometimes I delayed making a choice for too long, and that lack of a choice became one. But a poor one, and not a conscious one.
I choose to wait, I choose to act, I choose to spend time where I spend it, and I make mistakes. But it was my choice, and mistakes can also be things to learn from. And there is nothing else more important to me than having the ability - no, responsibility - relating to my own choices.
Scary? Yeah, it can be, especially when I was first starting to figure out what I wanted my choices to be. But liberating. Enlightening. Astounding.
No longer am I subject to other people's wants, needs, desires - unless I want to be. And I can choose to be strongly affected by other people by becoming close to them. This, too, is a choice, but one that to a certain extent I _must_ make - I am not fully myself without others to interact with at least some of the time. But I can choose _who_ to let in.
And, I can choose to let them go, but I don't let go of those I love without _very_ good reason. It happens, but not easily, and not quickly. Especially if there is hope relating to whatever reason I have for letting go. Even then, I'm not sure I let go completely, because anyone I let into my self enough to love them is going to be someone who changes something about who I am. The echos of the people I have loved remain. I do not stop loving those I have loved, even if I have to let them go.
Conscious choices are what makes, and keeps, me _me_. And what keeps me in a state where I can continue approaching the self I can become, at my best.
Now if only I could manage to be as conscious of my physical movements, I might stop running into things. ;)
Doing things intentionally...
In my life, nothing 'just happens'.
Not in the larger sense, at least - things over which I have no control certainly do just happen. But nothing which entails a major state change in my own life just happens. Not anymore.
Becoming aware that major state changes are possible does tend to just happen, although there are usually signs leading toward it, if I'm paying attention. But acting on it is a conscious decision. It has to be. Nothing else is healthy for me. I don't regret choices I have made - once I make a choice, I let it go. I regret ones I did not make; things I had no control over, or things where my choice ended up being to not make a conscious choice.
The closest I get to things that 'just happen' is the fact that I may not realize that I am in love with someone until I it has happened. But even _that_ takes time, and huge amounts of interaction, and energy. And I have to, at least at some level, be willing to let it happen. I don't fall in love with someone I don't know. I _can't_. I don't even have crushes on people I don't know at least to some degree - and have never understood how anyone could. So even with falling in love, there is a choice, in being willing to get to know specific people better, in seeking out their company, and investigating their minds, spirits, selves, knowing who they _are_. And, there are still other choices. Acting on it, or not. Being aware of it, or not.
Everything I do is about choices. Do I want something, or do I not? Even waiting is a choice, and one I make when the end result seems worth it.
Almost everything that has happened to me without being a conscious choice of mine was a mistake. Something I learned from, but not a good thing in itself. Sometimes I fell into bad (or truly terrible, in some cases) relationship situations. Sometimes I was hurt, and hurt _badly_. Sometimes I delayed making a choice for too long, and that lack of a choice became one. But a poor one, and not a conscious one.
I choose to wait, I choose to act, I choose to spend time where I spend it, and I make mistakes. But it was my choice, and mistakes can also be things to learn from. And there is nothing else more important to me than having the ability - no, responsibility - relating to my own choices.
Scary? Yeah, it can be, especially when I was first starting to figure out what I wanted my choices to be. But liberating. Enlightening. Astounding.
No longer am I subject to other people's wants, needs, desires - unless I want to be. And I can choose to be strongly affected by other people by becoming close to them. This, too, is a choice, but one that to a certain extent I _must_ make - I am not fully myself without others to interact with at least some of the time. But I can choose _who_ to let in.
And, I can choose to let them go, but I don't let go of those I love without _very_ good reason. It happens, but not easily, and not quickly. Especially if there is hope relating to whatever reason I have for letting go. Even then, I'm not sure I let go completely, because anyone I let into my self enough to love them is going to be someone who changes something about who I am. The echos of the people I have loved remain. I do not stop loving those I have loved, even if I have to let them go.
Conscious choices are what makes, and keeps, me _me_. And what keeps me in a state where I can continue approaching the self I can become, at my best.
Now if only I could manage to be as conscious of my physical movements, I might stop running into things. ;)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
*amused*
Date: 2004-05-24 08:11 pm (UTC)WAIT A SECOND.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-24 08:39 pm (UTC)I respond: you called? :)
no subject
Date: 2004-05-24 08:49 pm (UTC)Re: choices
Date: 2004-05-24 10:44 pm (UTC)Wherever one goes, it's choice to go there.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-25 04:36 pm (UTC)Exactly.
As I am fond of telling folks who insist that I *have* to do something, or who feel trapped because they think they *have* to do something, the only thing I *have* to do is die. Everything else is simply a choice of which consequences I am willing to accept.
Gotta love owning personal power.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-25 05:51 pm (UTC)Indeed.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-25 05:53 pm (UTC)Yes. And a very good differentiation to be made!
Wherever one goes, it's choice to go there.
And, at least for me, it's a much better thing if it's a _conscious_ one.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-25 06:02 pm (UTC)Re: conscious choice
Date: 2004-06-01 09:42 pm (UTC)