Is there such a thing as a circumstance without choice?

Yesterday my sister posted on my Facebook page a comment that stayed with me because it did not sit well with them. In response to my blog about the choices we make, she wrote, "sometimes it’s not about choices; it’s the circumstance that change our lives". And while I knew what she was trying to say, the more I thought about it, the more I realised I could not agree with her expression. Because I believe more than anything, we create our circumstances by the choices we make.

From the day we decided to come to this earth, we chose to come here. Some believe, including I, that we choose when to come here, who will parent us and what our lives will be. And sometimes along the way, we may alter our path by the choices we make but the ultimate destination never changes.

So every day when we get up in the morning, we are making choices which dictate the circumstances we find ourselves in. Looking at the street people in Denver, though I cannot fathom what could make someone choose to be homeless over having a home, I know in my heart of hearts it is because of the choices they made to become homeless. I discovered yesterday that there is a huge meth problem in Denver and that’s why there are so many young people on the streets. Many of them are there because they chose to experiment with drugs and have not yet made the choice to change their circumstances.

And when I think about the horrendous flight I took to get to Denver, had I chosen another day or time to get here, I would not have experienced that flight. But I chose to come here at that time so I put myself in the situation where I had to fly through terrible storms. And as horrible as the weather has been throughout the South, Central and Midwest US, the people experiencing that weather chose to live where they do.

Every word we speak, every action we take, every step we take, decision we make are direct results of the choices we make ultimately creating our circumstances every single day. We may bemoan our circumstances and think we are victims of them. But in fact we are not, we are the creators and hence the perpetrators of our circumstances.  We always have the power to change our circumstances by making different choices.

And sometimes it is hard to make the choice to change our circumstances because we fear what will become of us and those we want near. But what we fail to realise is when we don’t change our circumstances, we are still making a choice. The choice to remain.

Therefore in my mind, there can be no circumstance without choice because our circumstances are direct results of the choices we make or don’t make – either way they are choices creating our circumstances.

And once I got that lesson, I felt better about her statement and I knew she was my angel for the day because she reminded me that we are not victims of our circumstances, we are in fact the creators and perpetuators of our circumstances by the choices we make every single day. And in that way, we have the power to change our circumstances, accept our circumstances by the choices we make every single day. 

It is not circumstance that dictates our lives. It is choice. Always choice.Namaste