The choices we have

I went on a rollercoaster ride a couple of weeks ago at Bakken, near Copenhagen. It was one of the really (really) old ones, which to my mind means no turning upside down, no sideway motion, no dizzying dips, no spinning. In short: my kind of rollercoaster.

This is where I say something fairly obvious about rollercoasters and emotions and how we don’t always get to choose what kind of ride we go on in life. This is all true, of course.

But I have been thinking lately about the choices we do have. The space between stimulus and response, where we get to choose who we are and how we want to show up.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s not that I always make a better or even good choice. But the older I get, the more it is clear to me that I have a choice. And that I often need to expand the space for choosing, even just a little bit, in order to know what I want to do.

Here’s the thing. We can’t ever choose someone else’s response. Only our own. But in that choice is a latent universe of freedom, empathy, and love.

That’s where I want to live. I choose that.