power to choose

Who is your favorite superhero? Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, Thor, the Black Widow, Spiderman, Superman, Iron Man, Hawkgirl? With all due respect to all caped heroes and heroines, my top three are Hawkgirl, Iron Man, and Batman.  Though, after seeing the new trailer for Wonder Woman, I have a feeling my “top 3” is about to become a “top 4.”

That lasso, man.

We all love superheroes because they have this incredible amount of nobility and endless power they use for the good of mankind.

While we mere mortals may have varying degrees of nobility, we do have something in common with superheroes – we have our own superpower and can most certainly use it for good. This superpower is the power to choose.

I don’t know about you, but I often abuse my power. I am often confronted with two choices and exercise my superpower poorly by making the wrong choice.

We all struggle with the power to choose simply because we are, in fact, mere mortals.

Situation 1: We’re confronted by someone who is clearly in a bad mood. We have enough sense to SEE that but do we have enough sense to get out of the way? Not always. In fact, very often we charge right in, making a bad situation worse by responding to their harsh words with even harsher words. We take our power to choose and blow it to bits. In doing so, we take a bad situation and elevate it to a terrible situation – benefiting absolutely no one.

Situation 2: We can choose to take a walk or do a little yard-work – getting sunshine, fresh air, and exercise at one whack… or we can choose to stay inside and play a game online. How often do we make the wrong choice with this one? And let’s not even get into food choices!

Situation 3: We witness negativity and ugliness on social media. We can choose to rise above it and try to set an example for the immature mortals around us… OR we can get right down on their level and go toe to toe with them. When we make this poor choice, don’t we just increase the number of jackasses? 

The examples go on and on, but you get the idea. We have endless opportunities daily to exercise our superpower. The opportunities are so great that I’d never want to even attempt to count them. Our day is filled with moments and our moments are ripe with opportunities.

How do we make better choices?

1. The first step to making better choices is simply to acknowledge you are, in fact, making a choice. Take the first and last situations above, for example. If we were to train ourselves to be more mindful, we could train ourselves to pause before reacting to others. In that moment of pausing, we could then ask ourselves, “Is this the person I want to be? Do I want to mirror their behavior or aim higher than that?”
2. The second step is to breath in, breath out and choose well. Ask yourself, which choice is “worthy of me?”  and which choice will “be best for me and others involved?” When it comes to most choices, the decision has to be made within seconds. You don’t always have time to sit down and write out a “Pros and Cons” outline (though I gotta admit, I love those). You have to recognize that you have a choice, then you have to make the one that is worthy of you, best for you, and best for everyone involved. Not the choice that feels good in the moment – but the one that’ll feel good after the moment has passed – because the rest of your life is a heck of a lot longer than that one moment.

If we were to acknowledge the power given to us each time we have a choice, perhaps we’d make smarter choices. Smarter choices = better life.

Wonder Woman would approve.

~ Joi (“Joy”)