9.29.16 Choice

     Some ways we are on some days are easier than others. That's just the way it is. 
     What we can do with it has a lot to do with choice. Seeing choice. Acknowledging choice. Lots of times we have this little game we like to play with ourselves. We like to call it "I HAVE no choice". 

     We list off all the actual choices, dismissing them as not good enough or not preferable or not just just what we want. Then we deride our poor selves in our poor situation, with no no choices at all.
     That doesn't mean it's easy or great at all, our choices . It's that funny thing that happens when a friend or anyone we converse with teases out what the choices are, just wondering.
     They ask about one, about another, and we bat them each away, as if we are suddenly really good at ping pong or something. Bam bam bam .
     I was talking with an interesting person at the little local store the other day. They were expressing concerns about the coming busy season. About the owners not responding to their request for additional staff. About the new extra seasonal order just put in and due in a week. About how in order to do their job in they way they really like , they don't get breaks or lunch .

     

     It was so interesting, because it happens to all of us. We become invested in doing a good job. Management won't or can't shift resources in a way that makes sense. They watch us still doing a good job, by taking up the slack ourselves. By stressing about it. By making the choice to continue doing a 'good job' even if it's not our responsibility, even if our job is safe, even if we don't really need the job.

     I asked the questions , and got it. Their choice. To feel stressed and overburdened and undervalued , in exchange for keeping the standard of doing a good job. I reflected on that with them. I asked if making that choice was ok with them. They laughed and said they wished it was different. I said I understood.

     Most days I find myself thinking I have to do this, I don't get to do that, and it goes on and on. As if my whole life is just happening to me. But that it exactly true. Sometimes I notice the ways I'm choosing to frame my experience. And then it all opens up. Into my choosing to deal with this health challenge like this. That financial matter like that.

     It's not that we are supposed to like our circumstances or our choices. It's just that we benefit from stopping ourselves from pretending we are powerless or choiceless , and begin taking the freedoms and responsibilities we do have, into our own hands.