I Had No Choice

Choose what you want – this is a common statement when you visit an ice-cream parlor. There are so many flavors that we sometimes fail to decide on one. Our mind is so fickle that it always wants more than what we get. If it is just ice-cream, we have to choose then we always have multiple chances to try a different flavor every time we visit the place. When choices made decide your ways of living then be cautions to accept the choice to ensure there will be no regrets. Not always we get chance to choose what we want. Accept the surprises of life gracefully because not everyone gets the chance to show gratitude to the gift of life.

When we visit a restaurant, we always feel dish ordered at another table is more delicious and interesting than ours, when we drive, the lane next to us always moves faster than ours, dress, watch, jewellery, gadgets, house, car, everything always looks better what other have than what we possess. All these and many more contribute to our ways of living. We always hear people saying “I had no choice, so had to do this” but whether there was choice or not did you accept what you received? That acceptance is what makes the difference in life and how you utilize that which remains as an integral part of your being.

I am an engineer not by choice. This was chosen for me by my father. I accepted it with a heavy heart but cleared it with distinction. This degree gave me my first job, my future and to an extent even my marriage. Acceptance of something which is not our choice is always challenging because at every step we look for reasons to blame it on others. My marriage was another such decision which was done for me by my parents. It was my sister who told me one thing which helped me accept what was coming my way without my wish and will. She saw an upset little sister and told no matter what you do, nothing will change and eventually you have to accept what is happening. So why don’t you take that first step of acceptance and then change it the way you want with love. It was not easy, but I listened to her and started accepting the relationship though not whole heartedly. As she told, eventually that became the most beautiful relationship of my life because I started falling in love with that acceptance.

We always plan our future, but God has his own plot set up. This may come to us from various ways which we fail to see. When we are forced or obligated to do something which is not our choice at the back of our mind, we always have a thought that if something goes wrong, I can always say: “I was forced to do and had no choice”, so ultimately clear our conscious by blaming it on others or the situation. It is always easy to find fault in others  to escape from a guilty mind. But when you accept someone else’s choice and step into that, it becomes part of your life. Your life is what you do out of it no matter who decided what for you and even if you had no choice.

Acceptance is a very difficult step in life. Not everything is allowed to accept by our mind but without accepting, we can never move forward. When we are stuck with something like anger, success, failure, past, society, prestige etc, until we know we are stuck we can never move on. That acknowledgement comes only with acceptance. Most of the time there are questions asked: “given a choice what do you want to do….? We think and attempt to answer knowing it is just a thought. But if we can think of making a difference hypothetically, accepting that thought can make the difference in reality too.

My dad was an agricultural officer and hence posted in some of the most remote areas of the state. When I was in 3^rd grade, we were transferred to Bannur, a small village near Mysore. There was only 1 English Medium School which did not even have bench or desk in classroom. Kids were seated on the floor. My mother cried when she saw the school thinking she went to a better school than I was about to go. But we had no choice. Very soon the management of the school did organise for bench and desk and the first class to which it came was mine. This place was not our choice, but we had to accept that the next couple of years our life will be confined to this unpleasant reality which we never wanted to dream of.  It was here I was put to my school’s English teacher’s tuition class where my parents handed over “Wren & Martin” with me to take to the tuition class and put a strong base for my English grammar. I never went to her classes to learn anything which was part of school syllabus. I was there only to learn this ocean of English Grammar.  No matter the choice was ours or not, we did change that to something beautiful by acceptance and then looking for opportunity to help us change the situation to make our life worthwhile.

Acceptance is the key to every lock in life.
We can see the solution to any problem when we accept it.
We can learn from every mistake when we accept it.
We can change every failure to an experience when we accept it.
We can make every choice as ours when we accept it.

Life is much more than finding faults.
Life is much more than blaming others.
Life is more of choices made by us and others and their acceptance to build beautiful memories and make worthwhile changes so that choices made by us or someone else always turns out to be something we grow with positively.

Every moment in life comes only once.
Every decision we take can happen only once.
Every accident we face can occur only once.
Do not regret if the choice is not yours.
We will regret if we don’t accept that choice and do nothing about it. So, accept it and acknowledge it to make your life what you always wanted it to be.

Life is not a choice we make, when we don’t regret that why regret the choices that make life?!