We have a choice. As human beings it is understood that we are beings of choice. That we have the ability, the power, to make, or force our mind to think he thoughts we want to think. This choice should logically be positive and drive our actions to create better outcomes for our lives.
Working in the prison system, health care, and homeless sector it is more than obvious that this ability to choose, this self efficacy is not equally available to us all. The old cliches that a person with struggles just needs to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” and “get a job” or quit whatever they are addicted to, or to “focus on the positive” are generally not helpful.
Many of us are not born with, or our upbringing does not give us the same power of choice. In my own experience with relatively minor mental health struggles, I know that I often lack the power to choose my thoughts and thus change my outcomes. There is a whole spectrum of this ability to choose in each and every beautiful human being.
Those who happen to operate on a higher level of choice, through no self taught ability of their own; but only by random “nature and nurture” roots of origin, cannot, should not, judge those whose ability to choose is limited.
“Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves.”
If we can encounter the person on the street or somewhere in your life that may be struggling deeply, inside, where no one can see; with respect, dignity and patience then we have the ability , the power of choice, to change the world.
Hope and Healing 