The Burden of Choice

No matter what happens, you have to decide for yourself. You have to decide for yourself what to do and how to do it. You have to decide what to believe. There is no way to avoid this moral responsibility, though many people pretend they don’t have it.

“Oh, I just believe as science tells me,” or “I just behave as the church tells me.” Yes, you can choose to structure your life by adopting a creed whole cloth, but you can’t avoid the simple fact that you have chosen it. And you own the results that arise from believing and acting according to that code.

And if we look honestly at the habits we live by, and the beliefs that guide us, we will likely find many ways large and small that we have put our own spin on things. And that’s okay. The burden of deciding for ourselves can be heavy, but it is freeing as well.

~ by Edward on March 7, 2016.