My choices

I’m almost forty now. Throughout my life, I’ve mostly lived under the illusion that I’ve made choices, while I’ve really let life happen to me. Looking back at major decisions in my life, my motivations have almost never been what they have seemed. I’ve made decisions based on wishful thinking, an urge to make reality something that it’s not, wrongful labelings of people, events etcetera, fueled by a bunch of confused ides. 

Often, I’ve acted against my better judgment because I’ve been scared of doing what I somewhere have known to be right. 

I’ve often seen this in others, but been unable to see it in myself. Now, I still see it in others. I even see more of it. But I don’t judge anymore. At least not when I’m conscious of my thought processes. Because I know that I do the same things. 

The most common thing that I see in others, probably because I am not able to see their thought processes, is decisions following something like “I want this, so I’m going to have it without thinking of the consequences or what I’m committing to.”

The thing is, that in some strange way, my life has not turned into a total disaster. I’m not content with everything in it. But I’ve learned quite a lot and I can probably use my knowledge to make better decisions in the future.