Under the Hood

One thought that has been running through my mind since as far back as the year 2000 has been one that I've been unable to find the words for until now. Funny that it's taken this long to bring the words out, considering how common and simplistic they may sound, and yet they hold all the importance in the world to me, especially when pertaining to the decisions we make in our everyday lives.

I'm talking about the crushingly beautiful, yet utterly dangerous power we all possess...the power of choice.

This power is one not to be taken lightly...even the most seemingly small choice can lead to an ever-branching web of consequence. I'm still not even sure how I can fit this concept into a blog, but I'm going to try and condense it for those of you who haven't already fallen asleep at the keyboard.

I liken these choices/the people that make them to the inner/outer workings of a car. When a hole tears in a PCV valve assembly, the mixture of oxygen and gas can become a bit "off", thereby affecting your engine's overall performance and decreasing your gas mileage...if the problem is not addressed quickly and efficiently, this can lead to several other problems later down the road (I now see the bad pun here). Somewhat similarly, when a person's heart is broken and they let that pain influence their decisions, those decisions can lead the person down a whole series of differently-branching pathway in life...the path may not be a "bad" path to take, it may end up being a very positive learning experience. On the other hand, it could be a self-destructive path, beaten towards madness. I don't say this to frighten anyone, but rather to empower anyone who may not have seen life this way before.

It took nearly eighteen years of my life passing obliviously until I finally grasped what true power I possessed. I could make a conscious choice to become a banker and live an affluent lifestyle filled with frugal/frivolous spending, a pretty trophy wife, and maybe some kids to carry on spending my money after I'm dust. I could also make a conscious choice to become a professional thief and devote myself to a craft that consists entirely off of living through ill-gotten gains. I'm not joking here, people...I know in some ways it sounds like a kid's book: "You can be anything you want to be!", but the central point is that we have a profound responsibility (and thereby, accountability) inherent to the choices we make throughout our daily lives. Some of you may still be slapping your head and saying "Duh, Brad. This is old news." But that leads to the second part of this rant: Fate.

Does a greater power determine our destiny for us? I used to think of the idea as comforting, to know that God/Allah/Buddha/Amon/whoever you chose to worship would pluck a destiny from the heavens and lay it at your feet. After much more intricate thought, I began to think that a fair and merciful deity wouldn't let someone live a seemingly complete, fulfilling life only to have that life cut short by a runaway bus while crossing the street. I suppose a lesson could be taken from an end like that, such as looking both ways before crossing the street (something I learned a valuable lesson on during my fourth year of college, ask if you want to know). No one reading this can deny that the life we are given is precious and sometimes all too fleeting, but shouldn't we also live empowered by the responsibility of our own actions, a powerful life?

By now I'm almost certain that I sound like a self-help book-on-tape, so let me get right to the point: Do you believe that our fates are controlled by a grand puppeteer, pulling strings that we have no hope of resisting during our daily zombie walks? Or do you perhaps believe as I do, that God (or whichever deity you choose) has empowered us with one of the greatest gifts ever conceived, and that we have a responsibility as decent human beings to make the best choice possible for those we love and ourselves as well? Too often I see people who walk around as though life is a dream (and believe me, it is a beautiful thing) and they have no control over where it takes them. I suppose that's nice in some ways (takes the sting out of bad decision-making, for one), but if you feel as I feel on this matter, could you really choose to maintain an oblivious stupor knowing what you now know?

If you take nothing else from this rant of mine, consider this: You have more power than you can imagine. It is beautiful, it is dangerous, and it's there even if you try to deny it: Choice. It requires great accountability, but if harnessed it can make the difference between life or living death. The next time you sit down to reflect on your life, take a look under the hood and see how completely complex and powerful you really are.



"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
-Galileo Galilei-