Re: choice

[Guest guest]

I like to give this a go.

Sartre says like it or not, we are condemned to choose. Choosing not to choose

is also a choice.

Life then is about engagement, engagement in various life projects. When you

engage in some project, you must choose, there is no other way.

Its when we fall out of engagement, like when we allow our anxieties, or

depression, or our fears, or our phobias hold us back in life, that is when we

end up living a life of avoidance, and of course, avoidance is what ACT talks

about alot.

Tom

>

> My thinking get frezeed ,confused while selecting in choices.

> Everybody will be making choice everday, somebody will be get stuck like me

somebody not. I hope i can learn to move over the choice point by learing from

the collective wisdom of this list.

>

> I am reposting one of earlier post. It may piss off people for reposting such

a long post but what if one of u are in different perspective and can write

something useful to me.

>

>

> there is suffering inherent in every choice, includingthe choice not to

choose. We may cut off something of extraordinary valuein a choice. We may feel

that we are making a values-driven choice and findlater that we were completely

blind and acting in a self-righteous andmean-spirited way. (We sweat as we

recollect such events in our own histo¬ries.) The possibility of one of these

negative outcomes is psychologicallyinherent in the choice—it is why the choice

is hard (and avoided). Now theissue of living with integrity falls back a step,

and we need to examine theintegrity of not choosing in the service of fear: Is

that what we want ourlives to stand for? We may need to do exposure and defusion

in this fright¬ening region, where delightful and tragic possibilities

dance—that place onthe brink of choice.

> This is a hard place to stay. Two inclinations predominate. One is toback up

from choosing and dwell in the land of should I-shouldn't I,making little lists

in our head of the reasons we should and reasons weshouldn't in vain hope that

the scales will finally tip decisively and tell usthe truth about the choice we

should make. A second option is to justchoose—but in the service of ending the

burden this frightening psychologi¬cal space engenders. However, is that what we

want our lives to stand for?We explore both of these options with clients. We

first take imaginal tripsin experiential exercises where we walk up to the edge

of choice and experi¬ence the anxiety, the pressure; we then back up into

rumination and worryand add up the pluses and minuses. We examine the vitality

of that act.Then, again, we walk, in an experiential exercise, to the edge of

choice.Again, feel the anxiety, notice the memories, how the body feels; this

time,at the peak of anxiety, we choose a direction—explicitly in the service

ofending the anxiety. And then, notice what happens. Relief, but also

thethought, " What if I had chosen the other way? " In both of these scenarios,the

choice occurs psychologically as a " must " and as a " must do cor¬rectly " —both

psychological aspects of the choice that begs for defusionand exposure. They

occur psychologically as a lack of freedom. There is athird path. Camus

describes it best in " An Absurd Reasoning " : " The realeffort is to stay there,

rather, in so far as that is possible, and to examineclosely the odd vegetation

of those distant regions. Tenacity and acumenare privileged spectators of this

inhuman show in which absurdity, hope,and death carry on their dialogue "  (1955,

p.   8). What if we can, bydefusion and exposure, create a psychological space

where the client canstand rather than have to jump forward or backward? To us,

that is theplace from which choices with the most vitality emerge—that place

whereeven whether to choose occurs psychologically as choice.

>

> Also in

>

> " get out of your mind into your l.ife(goomiyl) " book steve hayes say choice

are to be made for there sake not for or against reason and it gave a excercise

of selecting the two alpbhapet as choice even when there are for and against

reason for selection.

> Metaphorically i understood it BUT HOW DO I USE IT IN EVERDAY LIFE DECISION.

>

> P.s i read a nice quote " do not mistake realization for understanding and

liberation for realization " .

>