Choices

A friend of mine told me the other day that he made a bad choice and I disagreed with him, he made a choice at the time that he thought was best for him but it hasn't worked out the way he wanted. The choice he has to make now is whether to continue down the path he is headed or to change direction. The problem is if he feels that he has made a bad choice to start with why should he trust any of his choices from this point on. I know the mind is not always a logical entity but it does come with some standard logical features. You can treat this whole thing like a mathematical theorem and one way to disprove any theorem is to find one case that shows the theorem is false.

So lets start with the theorem that we make good choices, in other words:

1) Choice = good

but if we can find one instance where the choice is considered wrong

2) Choice = not good

the first statement can't be true and we cannot be sure if our choices are good or not.

The problem with the mind is once it realises that there is uncertainty over where it can make a good choice or not it can become scared to make a choice. Then the mind can stop making choices at all, which is never a good thing because it wants to do it anyway and the only way it can stop is by numbing itself in anyway it can.

What the mind needs to realise is that there are only choices, action and consequences. Sometimes we make choices based on what we think we know and what we expect of the future, then we take action because if we don't nothing happens. It is the consequences of our actions that give us this idea of whether a choice was good or bad but as they say hindsight is perfect. In truth though they are simply consequence and not good or bad, particularly when looked on a longer scale since when can never fully appreciate the consequences of our actions.

So what the mind needs to realise the original choice is not the problem any more, the problem is whether we can live with the consequences. If we can't then we need to either change our actions to better suit our choice or make new choices based on the experiences we have gained from past choices.

It is that simple, except the mind is trained to view things as good and bad then punishes or rewards itself accordingly. The mind is also not objective because its view of what is good and bad depends on our socialisation which determines how we see the world.