It’s Your Choice—Not

I recently heard, again, a relatively popular idea which, honestly, offends me. Like many pop-psych or pop-philosophy ideas, it obscures the truth and can be hurtful to some—in this case, me. That idea is this:

Everything that happens to us (or even around us) is at bottom our responsibility because we chose it.

This sentiment is a sorry bastardization of one of the tenets of Existentialism, namely that we always have a choice.

Yes, we always have a choice. Even when it appears we have no choice, says Sartre, we still have the choice of suicide. Well, I’m not sure I can accept that as truth, either, but cases where suicide is not a choice are relatively rare, and I suppose even a person in a straitjacket could “choose” to strain this muscle or that, or speed or slow her breathing. In any event this argument turns the existence of choice into a tautological word game.

What our having a choice does not guarantee is that we can choose our choices, and that is everything. At one time in my life, for example, much as I wanted to pursue my art, I was faced with the following options: I could allow myself to be drafted into a war which I knew to be immoral, flee the country, or find a way to defer my conscription. I did not have the choice of remaining in my country, which I love, and painting full time. Had that choice been available to me I would certainly have taken it, but I had to pick the available option that felt best to me. That selection had side effects that led to other choices, but never to the ideal one.

I have oversimplified that story, of course, but the conclusion would still be that, much as I wished to, I could not choose what I really wanted.

What I find unforgivable is for choice-purists to blame others for suffering life conditions as if by choice. Body type, looks, intelligence and many other qualities are out of our control, but less obvious are the causes for drug addiction, poor mate choices or lack of ambition.

Here is how I “chose” not to be ambitious:

My mother died three weeks after my third birthday. I did not choose to grow up without a mother. I did choose from the options available, though I was not aware of choosing.

 I loved my father desperately. That love may have faded after his remarriage and emotional abandonment of me, but even so, as he was my only remaining parent, I “chose” to struggle for his favor—rather unsuccessfully.

My father was oddly competitive with me. When I taught myself a year of calculus during a summer vacation he confessed sadly that I was smarter than he. “But that’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?” he sighed.

He took up a course in calculus himself. When I asserted my interest in art, he purchased a set of watercolors and told me that he had been able to paint a “pretty decent sunset.” He urged me away from engineering—his career—while insisting that I could be anything I wanted to be. One might wonder if he was steering me away from a competition with him in that arena as well.

I did not compete with my father, my only true parent. My only confrontation was passive-aggressive. I was often angry at him, sometimes hated him, but judging from my actions it appears to me that out of loyalty I “chose” not to compete. I used to believe that I was afraid of him, but later came to understand that I was afraid to lose him, afraid to be disloyal. (On the other hand, he was a pretty good spanker.) My fury with my father sprang from his intransigence. He couldn’t give an inch, so that the only way to get anywhere with him would have been to give up my very self. I chose not to do that, but nor would I confront him in a struggle.

This choice left out an option for success. His comment about my prowess in mathematics may have been the deciding factor in my decision not to fight for success in a subsequent math course. But he did not turn me away only from mathematics. It was clear that if I exceeded him in any field I would make him sad. I chose against that arrangement; though later, when I felt my ethical and actual survival were at stake, I chose to reject him, however sad that made him.

Don’t worry. I’ve since chosen years of therapy, and am no longer motivated by paternal loyalty; but the after effects remain in the form of limited experience and history and I choose to do my best at overcoming them.

I recently saw a video in which a woman expressed rage that she had worked her “ass off” for her exceptional financial success, but was now upset to be reviled by those at lower levels of affluence. It had not occurred to her that many people have worked just as hard as she but are lucky to barely even survive. How did that happen? I can imagine her rejoinder—so repugnantly common—that those people just had not made the right decisions like she had. To such people I want to say, “Well if it is all about choice, then you are reviled as a result of your own decisions.”