My last post was about victimhood and some of the reasons that I have come to understand as to why it has become such a popular way of increasing one’s perceived personal power.

Contrary to the common wisdom, we live in a Universe of choices.  One of the ways to combat being a victim or being victimized is to choose simply not to be.  Victimhood is something we choose.

We may not like the choices; we often would not choose either option if it were left up to us.  But there is always a choice; we decide intentionally, or we choose by default.  Kind of sucks when you think about it, right?  Well, this just means you have likely not been making conscious choices.

Choices and the Silver Lining

We all know those annoying people that make Job look fortunate and yet, are still happy; that is a choice.  On the flipside, there are those that, handed a solid gold cloud, would only notice the scuff mark where you bumped the door on the way in, another choice.

We have discussed perceptions in the past, and what perspectives amount to are the repeated choices that we habitually make in how we view and interact with the world around us.

Choices in perception

So often we perceive the world around us through a filter that we are not even aware of, it is a habit that we do not often recognize.

Often expressed through the person who has something happen to them, it hurt them, they responded by becoming angry for example.  It is “right” and justified, the anger is not even the problem, at least not in the beginning.  The problem comes when the response goes on and becomes the filter through which one assesses everything in their experience.  In time the anger becomes habitual and, given enough support, eventually one just is angry and has forgotten the initial cause.  Any autoresponse that has become the defining source of our interactions needs investigation; this is how one begins to know oneself.

To have a reactionary response to stimuli is not a bad thing; “bad” is a judgement that we apply to justify our egocentric perception of better-ness.  It becomes problematic when we are not aware; it happens on its own.  We are now a reactor; a stimulus occurs, and we have a preprogrammed autoresponse.

Yes, I am saying that awareness of our states of being holds the answer again.  How could it be anything else?

The Silver Lining

As with all aspects of consciousness, the answer is nothing but an ongoing application of a choice.  The “choice” is always available to reconsider; one just needs to make a decision and then follow through with pursuing the new path or direction.  Often not easy, but usually simpler in the long run than the road they were on.

Note

We create worlds that support our chosen experience; the manifestation of these choices through what we do, how we go about things, and the people that we bring into our journey.  Some changes may be surprisingly simple while others can be Earth shattering.  There is an old expression; be careful what you ask for, you may just get it.

Conscious vs. Unconscious Choices

I mentioned earlier that choices occur continuously.  Choices should usually be conscious decisions that will lead one in a direction that has been determined to be a goal.  This is not always a hard and fast rule; there are exceptions as with all things in life.

The vast majority of decisions we make are determinative in that we most often have a direction we wish to go in.  When we live in an ongoing state of unconscious choice, we can become lost in the stream of what is happening and forget that we carry the power of determination.

This is a sticky part of the discussion; often we “go with the flow” in our lives, this can be good or not, becoming aware of the direction of that flow is the key.  If the river of one’s life is going toward a place you wish to be, great, if not, look into it.

I am a firm believer in the concepts of karma and destiny.  One’s path will always take one forward, in the long run, allowing for multiple lives and ongoing growth.  We also have the ability to pursue a path that may be different from the slower path of karma, in Christianity we call this grace and sometimes salvation.

All roads lead to Rome; returning to Source is the ultimate destination for all life.  Some religions have some interesting ways of getting there, but when you look past the dogmatization of the teaching, one finds the core teaching is about becoming aware of where one came from initially.

To use the most simplistic interpretation of Christian theology we have the choice to accept and acknowledge deity and take it within ourselves via the faith in Jesus the Christ.  A choice to direct toward a higher state, if it truly is Truth, should change one’s experience toward a higher expression.

Now what?

All choices can be reconsidered and, if we choose to, reworked to take us in a direction that we prefer.  Life experience is the culmination of choices, and if we wish to change the destination, we just make the choice.  After choosing a path, then we follow it up with the power of intention to continue the manifestation of the new direction into our experience.

Choices are not always what we want, and we often do not see them before us, part of that is the nature of humans and allows us to claim that it was done to us.  Nothing is ever “done to you”, it is always the outcome of choice and action.

Victimhood is a name we give to excuse ourselves from taking responsibility for the unintended consequences that we didn’t like to choices we may, or may not, know we made.  By looking at these repercussions, we usually can see how they came about being.  For those that we cannot see source or cause, try changing how you choose to respond and think about them.  No victims exist, ever, unless they wish to be.