Sunday, January 07, 2007

Begin again

And now the opposite, another week is about to begin. Sunday night has always been a time for me to reorient my head and prepare. It must have begun in Jr. High when I would stay up late and listen to Jean Sheppard (anyone remember him?)

This week will be busy. Almost all of the folks who said they would call to make an appointment after the holidays have called. There are others too, who have found their way to my voicemail, though very varied and complex networks that often surprise me. Only four of the thirty-six appointments are in the midst of a real major crises, although about nineteen think they are.

But, I think about my own life, and how much things have led me here, or how much I have chosen to make it that way. Probably because of what I do, I have learned to see things coming, and thus to avoid the worst of them. Sometimes, looking back, I wonder if I have chosen to avoid too much. There are risks I didn't take, that maybe I could have. Yet, my head is still attached, most of my body and mind work pretty well, and we are certainly not starving. My kids are healthy and doing very well, my wife is charming, and certainly still entertaining. I do spend too much time with people who are boring. I have cut down on that, but it still seems to force itself on me.

But, as much as I can, I try to believe that I have some control over what is going on. I am actively making choices. The options that I have to choose from do not always include my first choice -- I should be getting at least 3X an hour than what I do -- but all real choices involve trade-offs: You can work, or you can play. You can make money or spend it. You can have another drink, or avoid insulting your neighbor. You can stay up late, or wake up energized. You can do your homework, or fake it and hope for the best. You can seduce your neighbor's wife, or keep peace in the marriage.

There are all kinds of good things on each side of the either/or dilemma. Short-term or long-term gains? Can you really choose, or just rationalize?

2 comments:

Jay M. said...

I feel like I've been doing a lot of that myself lately. Trying to take a look at what's going on in my life currently, if I'm happy with it or not, and what choices I need to make in order to change it. I'm starting to feel like there's all these things that I'd like to do, but there's always an excuse not to. Maybe I need to start using the excuses to DO things and not the other way around.

Amanda said...

We can't always control what happens to us, but we do have some choice about how we respond to it. Of course our response is largely dependent on our conditioning, so one might argue that what seems to be a choice is not really a choice at all...