The Power of Choice

The law of opposites is the fundamental law that allows choice.  Our choices are the one thing that sets us apart.  They mold us and are molded by us.  They benefit from a cause and effect relationship that makes it impossible to separate ourselves from our choices.  We have the opportunity to act or to be acted upon. 

Without opposition we wouldn’t have anything to choose between.  What is the power of choice?  Choice removes confusion, ambiguity, etc.  Choice empowers, focuses and protects the mind and the spirit.  Proper choices lead to integrity, defines character, creates determination.  Defines us. 

Beware of the choices we make.  When internal conflict occurs (emotional, intellectual, moral, spiritual) the fundamental belief system that governed choice is challenged (belief, principles, doctrine).   There arises a need to discover the root of the conflict and then resolve.  This can be one of the scariest, most uncomfortable aspects of life.  Many people are turned off by these conflicts.  They then modify their belief system to avoid these conflicts instead of resolving them.  When not grounded in eternal truth, the compromise that follows is typically a lazy, nondescript auto-pilot. 

Choices are not made independent of a belief system or from each other.

“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
William Ernest Henley

Mr. Henley, defiant to his circumstances stood proud to teach us a valuable lesson.  We are the master of our fate and the captain of our soul.  What is the meaning of this?  It means that our perspective, our choices, our character, our soul is guided and directed by us, independent of all earthly things.  We may choose to be influenced but it is our prerogative, as free agents thus designated by God, to incorporate these persuasions in our decision making process.