It is for me to choose

“It was my fate”, “It was destined to happen” are comments we often hear when something unexpected happens. Such comments suggest that we are a part of a giant puppet show in which things happen as per a supreme design and we have no control on what happens. Usually, such thoughts console us when things go wrong; because the failure was not on account of our shortcoming, not on account of our irresponsible behaviour, not on account of the evil deeds of some, but because it was ‘so destined’.

On the other hand, most of our formal social systems like the legal system, the education system and the performance evaluation system are administered on the basis that we have the complete capability and freedom to choose our (re)actions and behaviour. If we break the law, we can’t escape the penalty claiming that it was destined. This is sort of a paradox; the mental balance propped by our faith in fate and will of a supreme force and the social balance supported by a structure that assumes rational choice by every human being. In our day-to-day life we often vacillate between these two extremes.

I decided to think through a bit and take a view that could guide the way I interpret events and act upon them. I agree with the brilliant one line summary by Jawaharlal Nehru; “Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is freewill.”

We live in a totally inter-connected world. What we do out of our freewill could set off a series of chain reactions like what happens on the snooker board. Sometimes we get the shot right and the outcome is as predicted. Very often the chain reactions we trigger bring about a new order on the board which we never imagined; as expressed by the butterfly effect, based on chaos theory, made popular by the paper by Philip Merilees titled “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?”

Some crazy kid decides to take his car for a spin. It was his free will. I happened to be in his way and got hit; it was my destiny. I survive with two artificial limbs; it is my destiny. I now have two choices. I can try to live on and find happiness in spite of my broken leg or can spent the life cursing the crazy kid and live a life of regret despair. Here I need to exercise my freewill.

This framework of freewill helps me to appreciate the fact that even though I have the freewill to choose, the options available to me are outcomes of a large number of factors on which I have no control and sometime the choice that we take makes it possible to predict how things turnout. It also teaches me that the freewill to choose does not guarantee any outcome; but I am still responsible for the choice.

How I exercise my freewill is also dependent on my mental makeup and strength. If I let myself to grow up without taking responsibility of my action then I may not be able to exercise freewill to the extent that is needed in any occasion. From this point of view freewill needs to be nurtured consciously and worked upon.

We can build up this skill as we build on our muscles. There could be limit on our ability to build on various skills; which could be on account of our DNA structure. But as we have to exercise regularly to develop a healthy body, we have to work on to strengthen how we react to what happens around us.

One of the true marks of achievement in life is the way we master this art of exercising our choice.

“The annoying thing about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame our problems on." P. J. O'Rourke