A decision is the deliberation of multiple options, and then selecting one of the options based on reasoning. Decision comes from the latin root of 'de' - to set apart form, and 'cide' - to kill off, or prune down.
When making a decision, we have to kill off the other options in order to be left with one last option, which we then decide upon. Its a narrowing down function meant to focus our energy on the highest reward available given circumstances. In this case, we are not making a choice, because our reasons (why we should or should not do a thing) are choosing for us. e.g.: choosing chocolate over vanilla 'because' I have a preference for chocolate is a decision based on preference being the reason that is selected the chocolate. Another decision would be to give chocolate to my friend, despite it being my preference, because I know that by making the decision to give it to them, I get the illusion of looking altruistic, whereas the actual reward is looking good, or seeming morally superior.
When making a choice, however, we consider all the options available and we choose freely, not based on reason, but rather based in free will and not necessarily consideration of the circumstances agreeing with us. A choice does not cut off possibilities, like a decision does. A choice allows for seemingly illogical possibilities of failure, hardship, or unpleasantness resulting from the choice, whereas a decision wouldn't. A choice does not separate or set apart one choice as more superior than another, because a choice's value system is not based on society, or feeling good states that the ego can experience. The choice derives from integrity and authentic self-expresson.
A choice then is a selection of what is, or what can be as an act of free will, whereas decision is the selection of action in response to circumstances. e.g.: choosing chocolate over vanilla because I choose chocolate. The selection of chocolate based on reasoning is absent from a decision.
Example:
There are many logical reasons why I should not have pursued the goal of becoming an acupuncturist. I will not make the same money as I would have remaining in DC, I will not have the same job security, I have a house and financial responsibilities, I have friends and family in DC and none in Hawaii, I lack a bachelors degree, and its a lot easier to stick with what I know versus dealing with studying full time, and needing to live with roommates versus having a place of my own. Had I used these reasons to make my decision, I would probably have decided that becoming an acupuncturist was a stupid idea.
However, I chose to become an acupuncturist, and as a result am having to go through much hardship to achieve my goal. Had I made a decision, I would have given up at the first failure (and the mind constantly attempts to make decisions), but having made a choice, I am propelled towards the inevitable - the becoming an acupuncturist.
What's interesting to note is that the difference between a choice and a decision can be felt emotionally. Any decision feels like a contraction, or constrainment. Any choice is in fact an opening and a sence of freedom. A state of integrity engenders choices automatically. Choices are birthed only from a state of total power, freedom, and full self-expression. Decisions instead take place when one or more of the three integritous states of power, freedom, and full self-expression are compromised or where reality does not align with the integritous state.
The choice is the plan, the decision is the program. The choice is the dream. The decision is the action.
Choice as Possibility...
A choice is the complete invention of a possibility of being after circumstances are evaluated, but the invention of the possibility takes place distinct from an actual decision making process. A specific decision making process shows up from the moment the choice is made in order to attempt to align the universe with that possibility. One then makes a commitment to a distinct series of steps congruent with what the vision of that possibility might look like.
Said another way, after the free selection of a way of being one subsequently naturally makes decisions on a course of action based on how that possibility might look in the world, and therefore how to transform the circumstances in the world to resonate with the highest state of integrity espoused by the possibility. The decision making process creates a program of action steps that attempt to deliver the possibility presented by the choice.
It is not possible to decide on a possibility. A possibility is not a specific course of action. A specific course of action is a result of a decision making process that results from evaluating a course of action vis a vis current circumstances. A choice becomes available when one restores a sense of integrity to power, freedom, and full self-expression in an area of one's life.
In the decision-based model of action:
Have -> Do -> Be:The possibility-based model of action:
Have - I have the circumstances I have
Do - I do only what my circumstances permit me to do
Be - I am the way I am, and feel the way I feel as a result of doing what I can about my circumstances.
Be -> Do -> Have:The decision based model of living is materialistic, and gives in to the circumstances of one's life. A decision based model does nothing to restore one's power, freedom, and full self-expression. A decision based model denies that anything other than a reaction to the circumstances is possible. The being based model requires no circumstances. The being based model is pure invention of life based on authentic choice. The being based model for action is possible only when we inquire into where we are out of integrity with our full power, freedom, and full self expression in life.
Be - I can be who I choose to be (happy, content, courageous, peaceful, honorable, humble, etc..)
Do - I do what a person who is that does
Have - I get the results associated with what I be and what I do
Relationship between Choice and Decision...
The decision making process does not cease in lieu of making a choice. In fact, the decision making process begins only once a choice is made. Some would say that the very first authentic choice we make as a human being is the choice of our spirit to enter the body to play the game of life at the birth of each child. The full power, freedom, and self-expresson then remains with us until our left brain kicks in around age 7 and the decision making processes in life start shaping our lives. Each major course correction in life then results from an authentically made choice. The rest of our life events are ego-created decisions based on looking good, and feeling good, and survival.
Once you make a choice, what then?
A choice is a course correction, the decision making process itself is only the project plan of action. The choice is made in spite of circumstances, and the decision making process that follows is informed by preferences and circumstances.
After I chose to become an acupuncturist, the decision making process of what that might look like began. The circumstances were obvious - financial issues, house problems, lack of bachelors degree, a sea of circumstances not aligned with that possibility. The preference was Tai Sophia Institute. My lack of bachelor's degree did not allow for that, so my decision making process evaluated other options. I did not choose to move to the Big Island of Hawaii. I instead decided to move to the Big Island of Hawaii as a result of a decision making process constrained by circumstances, and informed by the ego. The preference of Tai Sophia was replaced with any other school that 'looked good'.
The Decision Making Process - Your friend, your enemy...
The location was informed by a preference for Island life, and not an authentic examination of what my education congruent with my possibility of being an acupuncturist would look like. This was a mistake - as my choice to become an acupuncturist became obscured by the illusion of switching all of my life circumstances to center around comfort (e.g. new location, Island life). This is the inherent danger with the decision making process. The decision making process attempt to fulfill on your authentically created choice, but it can be influenced and detracted very slyly by the ego seeing comfort. I was so blinded by the vision of living in Hawaii, that I didn't consider other schools as an option. It is this precise reason why the decision making process must constantly be checked against the integrity of the choice/possibility, if the choice is to be honored to its highest state of integrity.
My first ego-preference was the Island of Maui. There being no schools on Maui, I decided on my current school on the Big Island of Hawaii. The decision making process based its decisions on the information that was available to me, and based on my choice to make a rapid change in my life, but one that was not informed by all of my available options. Everything went according to plan, but decisions were made which altered the way the choice would show up as.
Free Will, Suffering, and Commitment...
The actions that followed were determined by decisions. Living with roommates v.s. not living with roommates was a decision necessitated based on a financial circumstances. It was not a choice. Because it was not a choice based on free will, I get to be a victim and suffer because of the imposition on my life resulting from needing to live in this manner. Selecting a TCM school was a decision, and not a choice, because of a lack of research and understanding, and lack of a clear vision for how the possibility engendered by my choice to be an acupuncturist might look. My vision was not specific enough. My vision was not integrally informed.
Attachment to the result...
To the degree that something is occurring not as a result of choice - i.e., the free will of selecting something freely even while its implications may have negativity associated with it - but as a result of a decision, this allows one to feel dominated by life and justified in one's complaint about circumstances that are not in line with the the possibility. To the degree to which I don't choose life the way it is and the way it isn't, is the degree to which I get to suffer about it and feel a victim to it.
If the choice is "I'm going to be an acupuncturist", but I add qualifiers to it such as that it has to look a certain way, feel a certain way - then I am imposing parameters along with my choice. There's nothing wrong with applying parameters. The results of decisions and actions to realize those parameters either have congruent results, or divergent results. This is all dependent upon how clear your vision is, and how committed you are to your vision winning over your ego.
There are three courses of action to pursue in terms of results:
1. The circumstances are aligned with the possibility, and no action is needed
2. The circumstances are not aligned with the possibility, and one is choosing to work with the circumstances, or
3. The circumstances are not aligned with the possibility, and one is not choosing to work with the circumstances, one instead decides to react a certain way.
Can one become attached to a possibility? I would say that one can be committed to a possibility, and one can be attached to specific results. The committing to a possibility will nearly always bring suffering. Its inherent. Anyone who's ever stood for anything of importance has suffered for it - but this is only in the eyes of onlookers, their actual experience of what others may have called suffering was no doubt quite different. Attachment to circumstances being a certain way will always give you suffering because if you're attached to things being a certain way, you are resisting the circumstances being just as they are. The resistance to the circumstances creates suffering. Does commitment to a possibility therefore always engender attachment to specific results? It doesn't if one has preferences, and can allow for circumstances to not be aligned in the present to that preference. It is through the commitment to the possibility and action associated with it that then transforms the circumstances.
Choice v.s. Acceptance Fallacy...
There is a tendency to think of choice being new-agey catch-all course of action for transforming any negative circumstances in your life into positive ones, where the alternative is a feeling of victimization and resignation to circumstances. In the example of having a flat tire, one can decide to act based on the circumstance and feel a victim of the circumstance, or choose the circumstance, in which case one is free to invent how one will be about the circumstance.
The usage of the distinction choice versus decision can dangerously imply that in any set of negative circumstances, you are always at choice to choose them, or to decide to accept them / resign yourself to them, or decide to act to change them. The problem is that it can occur as if acceptance is nothing more than resignation to circumstances disguise itself as a choice. "I don't feel good about my circumstances, therefore I must choose them, then it will once again feel like free will". In this case, however, one is making a decision to act because one will feel better thus this is a decision being made by the ego which wishes to avoid suffering at all costs. This is of course nothing more than a mind trick . One is lying to oneself.
A choice is the creation of a way of being about a circumstance that has the most integrity - that is to say, a way of being where you have all of your power, freedom, and full self expression, regardless of circumstances. And because it comes out of free will, rather than a decision to feel like a victim, the choice of 'being' about a change in one's circumstances literally shifts the decision making process of how to react to one's circumstances. So if I have a flat tire, and choose the flat tire, I can choose to be any number of things which restore my power, freedom, and self-expression without feeling like a victim.
Back to the practical...
In my recent months, my choice about who I have chosen to be has resulted in my making decisions that created the circumstances that I have. Some of the circumstances are compatible with my choice, and some of them are not. To the degree to which I am attached to the way things should look, is the degree to which I resist the current circumstances. The resistance to the circumstances then generates my victimhood. My choice has not changed. My circumstances have. My decision making tells me it will feel good to whine and get sympathy, and will allow me to not take responsibility for the actions which created the circumstances. In light of my circumstances I am faced with choosing them, accepting/resigning myself to them, or resisting them.
In complaining about my circumstances, I would get to sit in inaction. In absence of a choice, I was at the same job for 8 years which I hated, but decided on staying in. In the presence of an authentically made choice, inaction is really never an option for long. Complaining and victimhood only gets you so much juice before you realize you're only cheating yourself of an experience to truly realize the choice which originally touched, moved, and inspired you.
In choosing my circumstances as they are and as they aren't, I now have the possibility of represencing myself to the original choice that originally got me here. My circumstances give me a situation where I have been discouraged by the education here not living up to my expectations. This meant that I was neither accepting or being resigned to my circumstanced, but rather than choosing action, I decided on playing the victim through inaction and whining, and throwing a tantrum. The choice is nearly always resignation and cynicism, or playing the victim, dominating someone, or acting self-righteously. If a choice is compelling, if the integrity offered by the choice looks you in the eye, its hard to justify victimhood, as it has no room for an 'unfulfilling education'.
It is out of my original possibility that I commit to getting out of my education what is truly possible out of this medicine. This means settling for nothing short of excellence. Not settling for mediocrity. Not settling for comfort, and not settling for a 'good time', or the easy way our while I dedicate my life to this pursuit. What the 'easy way out' is, can change depending on the say - staying, leaving, changing, resignation.
How this might show up in action is committing to getting the training and education from the best, the brightest, and the most brilliant intellectual, spiritual, and ethical healers who will teach me - an education that lives up to its highest potential within the context of my possibility. I didn't come here to just get a degree and leave to open a nice quiet little practice that I can set up in some small office somewhere in the world and meet people for a friendly chat, and stick some needles in them, and send them home to the problems they came in with.
What I came for...
What I came for is nothing short of the transformation of the medicine itself - for the fulfillment of other's callings through awakening the body, mind, and spirits to the possibility of life itself - by becoming the most excellent practitioner I can be, the most dedicated of disciples of this medicine, so that through me this medicine can give back to the community and back to the acupuncture educational institutes at large the highest possible realization of the powerful potential this medicine has to offer in transforming the world.
And if I can't get that from my current school, then I will get it through other means, such as the dedication to and absorption in Five Element acupuncture, integral evolutionary oriental medicine, TCM internal medicine mechanics, and Seitai Shinpo structural mechanics, while I have money, energy, and spirit to pursue them towards excellence - even if this means studying all of these other subjects in all of my free time, and involving myself in all online and physical communities that will support that end. But beyond that limited vision, to be open to the vision being even bigger than myself, and bigger than what I can do in this lifetime.
And if the school I visit in Oahu is closest to the spirit of my original possibility of being the best acupuncturist and the best most compassionate and integral healer, then my continuing decision making process will take me there towards that goal. If not my decision making process will have me remain here.
The fuel behind it all, is choice.
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Choice vs. Decision
by Steve Rogers & Danish Ahmed
Who is in charge of my life?
If I was in charge, would I not achieve
at least those things that are attainable through effort?
It's one thing to give away to destiny and unknown forces,
those things where other forces have say,
but what about those things that simply require effort?
Is it not, simply, a decision?
When no other forces have say, is it not simply your say that has power?
You're the only one who can make it happen, or not.
So, how do we take that available power,
and at least choose to turn those things that are in our power,
into our reality?
The distinction between choice and decision,
is the one that fuels
the distinction between plan and program.
The choice is the plan, the decision is the program.
The choice is the dream. The decision is the action.
Choosing implies opening a door and seeing what happens.
Deciding implies giving something up and receiving
something in return.
With a choice comes possibility.
With a decision comes commitment.
There are two ways to live.
Avoiding decisions, or embracing them.
A decision has no power until it is embraced with integrity.
If we can decide something one day,
and the next day we can undecide what we decided,
we have no power in our life,
we have no power to choose our path.
For choice to flourish, decision must flow through.
2 comments:
This is a pretty heavy piece of writing. I needed to be confronted by it all as the issue has stared me in the eye for a while. Thank you for helping me to make these distinctions - choice and decisions. I did not think about them previously as being lodged within the realm of possibilities.
And as I look at my life, I can see that my choices had to expose my weaknesses and display the avoidance of taking responsibility for ... decisions I have been dealing with daily. I think one can look at integrity in a simplistic way, as I have done. What struggles within me is grasping and living the alignment of words and actions.
These are just a few thoughts. If you read my blog, we must have been writing about the same time. My reference to one's DNA, and the way we are propelled to be who we are, connects well with your rich comments I just read.
I was especially touched by this sentence: "If a choice is compelling, if the integrity offered by the choice looks you in the eye, its hard to justify victimhood, as it has no room for an 'unfulfilling education'." That's a reflection on your experience. My experience has to do with my choices. Some are still to be made.
Thank you for pushing the borders in my own life and my daily dreams-to-be-fulfilled.
Now ... I better go back to my bathroom mirror and see what I will discover today. :-)
Sometimes we hear: I made a wrong choice. Does that ever work?
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