Beattie - Choices: Taking Control of Your Life and Making It Matter

When you figure out the secret to absolute control in every situation while maintaining mental wholeness, I would love to know, a woman said to me one day. Thats what this book is about: how to take control of our lives without going subtly or profoundly insane.

My friend is twenty-four; engaged to be married. Her boyfriend went skiing this weekend and was killed. Why did he have to die? Why does she have to go through this?

I dated a man for three months. Fell in love for the first time in years. Then he dumped me. It was the first time Id opened my heart since my divorce. Why did that happen to me?

Why did my husband cheat on me and ruin our marriage? Why is my new car a lemon? Why did such a saintly woman have to spend the last seven years of her life paralyzed and confined to bed? Why has my child turned on me? Why wont my last boyfriend let go of me? Why cant I let goreally let goof him? Why are my parents insane?

Its easy to suggest Get a grip, Dont be a victim, Theres a reason things happen when the problem happens to someone else. Harder when were the one feeling afraid, guilty, angry, hurt, bewildered, staring our loss and emotions in the face.

What are the situations that cause us to feel like were out of control? When we try to do something we cant. When things dont go as we hoped or planned.

Whenever we cant see the game of cause and effect at play we feel confused, frustrated, and vulnerable to forces we dont comprehend. Is it random chaos? we wonder. Or is there really some sort of Plan? Or, like C. S. Lewis in A Grief Observed, we may believe clearly in God and the Plan. The conclusion I dread is not So theres no God after all, Lewis wrote, but So this is what Gods really like.

Is everything predetermined, or do we actually have free will? Both ideas are true. We cant choose whats on television, but we can choose what channel to watch or whether to watch television at all. This process of discerning what we can choosewhat we do have control overand what we cant is the heart of mental health and the heart of the spiritual path.

A lot of things will happen to us over which we have no control. That includes other people, their use of free will (or not), and acts of God and life. We do have control over something, and that is our own behavior and our power of choice. We cant control what happens to us, but yes, we can choose.

Do our choices really matter? Do we really have any, other than what were going to eat for breakfast and lunch? What about when things happen that we cant control? The person we love most goes awayeither he or she dies, leaves, or we break up with him or her to save our own lives. Our best friend lies to us, betrays us. Or a parent or best friend gets sick.

What choices do we have now?

Or we find ourselves alone, raising two young children with no child support and a low-paying job. Or were forty-eight years old and still living alone without a shred of hope left about meeting Mr. or Ms. Right. Maybe our business goes broke and our hopes crumble. Or that project weve put our whole life into just wont materialize. We try and try but cant get our dream off the ground.

We might have choices, but we cant see what they are.

A friend of my daughters sat in my kitchen with me one day about three months after my son, Shane, died. I was trying to keep moving. It was tough. My daily goal was just to get out of bed. She touched my shoulder, looked into my eyes.

We had to write an essay about courage in English class today, she said. So I wrote about you.

Her words touched my heart; they also frustrated me.

I wasnt brave. Life hadnt given me a choice.

Or maybe I just didnt like the options I had: keep going or quit.

Sometimes we feel that we dont have any choiceat least none that we can see yet. Or we think we have to act the way we feel. Sometimes our only options are choices we dont likeneither one is preferred, but one is unacceptablea situation known as a hard call. Other times we see so many options indecision paralyzes our mind.

We dont choosewhich is making a choice.

Or wed rather have someone else choose for us; then we dont have to take responsibility for the results. Well, we dowe have to take responsibility for the choices weve allowed someone to make on our behalf.

Not all choices are black and white. Some are gray. Emotions and extenuating circumstances may be involved. And our challengesthe ones requiring hard or tough callsusually happen at the place we would least prefer that they occurred. Our weakest link. Some of the choices we label mistakes turn out to be the best things we could have done. Other times our noblest gestures backfire, hurting others and racking up more consequences for them and us.

Gaining control of our lives takes awareness and focused intention, like climbing a flight of steep steps. How much power do we have? Less than many of us hoped for, but more than we think. By using our free will, we can take part in shaping our lives no matter what life throws our way.

Consciously or not, weve been doing it all along.

Its not what recovering alcoholics call an easier softer road or self-will run riot, this business of focusing our will and climbing up steep steps. Using our free will to make enlightened choices often means making the truly hard calls such as letting go of cherished ideas, trusting God, and having faith even when doing so hurts and flies in the face of what we can see with our eyes. Other times it means doing some work ourselves. Usually its a combination of both.

The great irony of control is this: usually when were out of control, we dont see it. We just see that others are spinning around. In an odd way, when were in control of ourselves, even the bizarre seems to be part of a plan.

Most of us have had moments when everything falls into place. Weve been willing to let go, trust, surrendereven though we dont know what the outcome will be. Then something magical and wonderful happens, confirming our faith. We feel like weve discovered fire, and like weve discovered it for the first time.

Gee, I really can trust God, we think. And we think that not because we get what we want, because as most of us know that can be an illusion. We think that because for that moment we feel the order, the aliveness, the connectedness. The Reason behind things happening shows its face.

If you want more of those moments, this book is for you. This book is for ordinary people age 13 to 103 who want intimate relationships with themselves, other people, and the world.

Well look at some simple secrets about how this world works, and how to apply those ideas to the choices we make each day. Well draw from the well of religions, some of the great minds, and stories from real peoples lives. Some of these stories for various reasons will be fictionalized or portrayed anonymously; others will be told almost exactly as they occurred. Ill weave snippets into this from the three months I spent in China and Tibet.

Usually when I write a book there is one core experience at the heart of it. Many peoples experiences will be in here. And the experiences arent always one dramatic incident in time; many stories depict the gritty choices people make each day that affect the course of their lives. These stories tell a larger story about living life consciously aware that we are guided by God.

This is a handbook for reminding us we have choices and the ability to chooseeven when it feels like we dontand exploring what some of these choices are. In reality many more choices are available than the ones presented here. By reading the stories, youll be able to translate that to the situations in your life and grow in consciousness about the choices you face and make each day.