Self-pity is no option

[1]

Saying you have no option is a self-created dilemma! Where you become so busy in self-pity that you forget to think of more options. Every day when you wake up, you have options what to wear that day, what to eat, how to treat others, what mood to be in, etc.

You may not always like the options which are present in front of you, but they are still options. No one else is in control of your thoughts, emotions, speech, or actions. You are the sole pilot of you. But you cannot control everything, there are, of course, things about which you have no option like the length of a day, the weather, the color of your skin. Maybe you grew up in a poor family and didn’t get many opportunities. Maybe you didn’t get a good education. Maybe your parents had problems and your childhood suffered as a result. But the list of things over which we have no control is surprisingly small, much smaller than many of us seem to realise.
How many times do we turn away from our commitments because we think there is no option as it seems to us that they require too much work or they simply seem impossible to achieve? There may be lack of funding, a rejection letter, a failure in business, people that don’t support, or worse. Life can be filled with setbacks. They may come from within you or from outside of you. Either way, it is sure that they will crop up at some point or other. The issue is what you decide to do with them. You give up or look for options? The present is always fresh and you always have option of creating your life again. No matter what has happened in the past, whatever habits you have developed, however deeply ingrained are your patterns of behaviour, there is always scope for you to opt for a new response. You determine your response to events and the point is that you can control your response to events. In any given situation there is space between stimulus and response, that space is our inner power to opt for response. Our growth and freedom lies in our response. Our ability to look for more and more options determines our success and our failure, our happiness and our misery and even the worst of conditions cannot destroy that basic ability to choose our experience.
For example if you smoke, you can blame that nicotine is addictive; you can blame your parents for giving you freedom to make your own decisions. You can abdicate responsibility by projecting it onto the society in which you learned to smoke, because ‘in those days, everyone smoked’. All these things may be true, but they did not cause you to smoke. You were free to respond to these stimuli in any way you decided, so you decided to be a smoker. Still you have time you can decide again. But whenever you have an important decision to make, you get stuck on two options. But I believe taking a few minutes to list “all” your options (even unrealistic ones) can reduce stress and lead to better decision making. We are human and will always make mistakes, but taking responsibility in all aspects of your life can be very liberating. When you take responsibility for your thoughts, actions, behaviors, and emotions, you open yourself up for enlightenment, understanding, and empathy. You will notice a shift in your surroundings. You will be presented with better options and therefore will start to make better decisions. How great is it to know that we have the power of creating options within each and every one of us.