A well-lived life is all about increasing choice. The more choice, the better your life. Which aspects of life, though, could be a choice—and which can’t? What allows us to have choice? Let’s look more closely.
We have no choice about several aspects of being human:
Everything in the universe is impermanent and eventually ends, falls apart, or dies.
We have no control over many forces in the universe: gravity, cosmic rays, earthquakes, the sun, etc.
We need air, water, food, shelter, love, and a certain temperature range—or we can’t survive.
We’re sensitive. We’re prone to injuries and disease.
Others have their own agenda. What they do often interferes with what we want.
Some things we can influence:
We can wear warm clothes, stay indoors, carry an umbrella, etc.
We can eat right, exercise, get enough sleep, and meditate, to protect our health.
We can try to influence the behavior of others.
And so on.
Finally, We Could Have A Choice About Some Things- Under Two Conditions.
1) We can only influence what we create, and…
2) It must be created with awareness.
Awareness is the ability to see what we’re creating (and how we’re creating it), as we do it, while also seeing the consequences, as they happen. (And, by the way, knowledge is not the same as awareness.)
Awareness creates choice. A newborn baby moves and sees the world randomly, without intention or choice. As the brain develops, however, awareness increases. Eventually the baby will choose to grab a toy, or choose to look at his mother’s face. The baby’s awareness allows him to choose.
A toddler can think long before he has the awareness to think intentionally. But once he becomes aware of his thoughts, he can decide what to think about.
What you create outside your awareness happens automatically, without choice. What you create with awareness, however, is a choice.
What Aspects Of Life, Then- With Enough Awareness- Could Be A Choice?
1) Feelings and other internal states…
2) Behavior…
3) The people and situations you attract or become attracted to, and…
4) The meanings you assign to what happens.
Complex internal cognitive processes, generated in your brain, create these four things. Create them outside your awareness and they’re created automatically and unconsciously. Create them with awareness, however, and they become a choice.
And Once You Have A Choice You’ll Always Choose What Is Most Resourceful- For You, And For Others.
What you create outside your awareness, though, is potentially problematic. Sometimes things will turn out okay; in other cases they won’t. What happens depends on your unconscious mental programming. Whatever happens, it won’t be a choice.
If, then, despite your best intentions, you aren’t living a healthy lifestyle—eating a healthy diet, exercising and meditating regularly, getting enough sleep, and so forth—it’s because the feelings, behaviors, meanings, and other choices involved are being generated outside your awareness. It’s as simple as that.
Create them with awareness, though, and you’ll easily follow through on your lifestyle intentions. You’ll choose what best serves you.
Without enough awareness, though, even the best information and the best of intentions won’t be enough—unless you’re lucky enough to have great unconscious mental programming.
Awareness is the crucial fundamental to a life well-lived. If you want your life to be a choice, you must become more aware. There’s really no other way.
Without enough awareness, though, even the best information and the best of intentions won’t be enough—unless you’re lucky enough to have great unconscious mental programming.
Awareness is THE crucial fundamental to a life well-lived. If you want your life to be a choice, you MUST become more aware. There’s really no other way.
A lack of awareness (plus not knowing where to direct that awareness) is why you may be spinning your wheels, why you may have read many good books, taken many good courses, and learned many valuable things, but still haven’t created the happiness, radiant health, inner peace, and success you’d like to have.
We have two challenges, then: How to create the awareness that allows us to see how we’re creating our feelings, behaviors, attractions to certain people and situations, and the meanings we assign to what happens; and to learn how and where to direct that awareness so as to create the greatest amount of choice.
