Choosing makes us free! Really?

“Choosing makes us free!” Really? When I heard this statement for the first time, it seemed like a folly to me. I thought that choosing something right away would mean that I would have missed out on something else, that is, the thing I did not choose.

After such a decision, I would only have one possibility, the one I had chosen, and not all the others, so I felt a nervousness rise inside of me. It may just be my own shortcoming, but I have the feeling that perhaps I am not the only one.In our everyday lives, do we always choose? We choose to stay where we are, to continue the work we are doing, to continue the relationships that we have.

Are they choices or habits? Perhaps we are so absorbed in daily routine that we do not even ask ourselves whether the things we are doing are fulfilling or not. Perhaps we are too tired, or too lazy to think about how it might be if something were different? If so, then it is time to choose! This is why I need to understand what is important in my life, what truly makes me happy.I need to understand what values my life – and my choices – are based on. It’s actually easy, I just need to observe myself to understand what I’m spending my time on. It helped me to write these thoughts on paper and ask myself, “Why do I this? What does it bring me? What is important in my life?”

Then, I made a list of my priorities in order of importance. When I finished, looking at my list of values, I was not satisfied. The actual list was quite different from the ideal one, so I asked myself: How do I reduce the divergence between them? By choosing! I choose to give space to the things I want to experience, to make it a priority – the things that make me happy every day. That is when everything became easy: I was making choices!

I understand that choosing leads to a direction in my life, it makes me free. Free of uncertainties, of doubts, because I do what makes me happy. I admit that there are things in my life that are more strenuous than others, but I do them anyway because behind them there is a goal to reach, and at the base there is a choice. I have experienced great freedom thanks to the clarity I achieved. I seem to have achieved something “more” and not “less.” It has liberated energies, the ones I had used to convince myself to do something that I didn’t really want – concrete energies – and it has made me happier. I decided to do this exercise every year (around my birthday) to see if my choices are still aligned with my values.