It is all about choices

When Rachel and I started dating I had a head full of therapy. It was unarguably the best therapy I’ve ever engaged in. It forced me to look at and challenge my core beliefs, including many I didn’t know I had. My therapist was versed in the art of Determinism. Determinism is the belief that everything in nature is caused. The definition of Total Determinism is that all someone’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are caused by one or more determinants, and that beliefs, especially those which are emotionally loaded, are powerful determinants of thoughts, feelings and behaviors. “We are what we believe.”

It’s a philosophy like any other, open to debate. Rachel and I spent many a night curled up on either side of our favorite green couch debating Determinism’s boldest statement: Free will doesn’t exist.

To prove its point, determinism uses deductive reasoning: If man is bound by determinants, then any choice he makes is not of free will, he is motivated by unconscious desires to serve his determinants.

Rachel disagrees.

“It’s all about choices,” She stated, point blank, then waited for me to respond.

I was apprehensive. Rachel, like me, loves to play devil’s advocate. It’s one of those qualities about our mates that we only find endearing in hindsight.

“There is no free will if we’re bound by determinants.” I answered, expecting her to accept my airtight case.

“I don’t believe that. Even if you are behaving on an unconscious level, you can still make a choice to do or not do something, it’s all about choices, ” she pulled out some eighties logic on me, quoting from an old Rush song, “Even if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

It was the first time I heard her say it, and it won’t be the last. Like all mantras, it’s only powerful if the person saying it truly believes it, and she does.

We revisited it when I pondered leaving my job. "You can choose to stay and see how it goes, or you can choose to take a chance." (I was going to leave out the part where now I work only half the hours and make more money). "See, it's all about choices."

When we thought about moving to escape the fourth most polluting powerplant in the country, I doddled, worried it was a mistake. "We can stay or go. Either way it's a choice." It was her way of of forcing me to recognize the truth...need I say it again?

On Saturday Rachel and I were faced with a dilemma, more mine than hers. We went to BestBuy to buy a camera to take pictures of our new puppy, Mow Mow, (not here until June 12th, stay tuned).

While we were there we picked up an extra memory card for the camera and a zip drive for Rachel to save all her school work.

Rachel scanned the receipt in the parking lot:
Camera $179
Extended Warranty $29.95
4 Gig Memory card $29.95
No zip drive.

“We have to go back.” Rachel said without thinking. But she’s in a relationship with me, a former criminal, and as lazy as a retired donkey.

“But it’s way back there,” I whined. This from a man who jogs three miles, three times a week, to nowhere in particular, “it serves them right.”

Rachel crooked her neck, as if trying to rattle loose the thorn stuck in the logical side of her head, the one that allows her to date an unethical heathen like me. “Seriously?” she asked.

“They’re a big, faceless, conglomerate,” I stopped myself there, knowing my argument, if not contested, could easily mushroom. It would start slow. I’d take more than one lollipop from the bank or sneak nine items through the eight item grocery line, and eventually, I’d be taking down armored cars.

We went back. I let Rachel do the talking since for her it meant another feather in her ivory wings, for me it was one step back from Hell.

In the car she smiled, held my hand, leaned in and kissed me softly on the cheek and said, “See, it’s all about choices.”