One different choice
I’m totally open to this kind of thing, but I’m going to move forward with my life in the meantime. (Image by Stefan Keller)
A movie or novel starts in the moment when something is about to change for our protagonist.
This change is always brought on by some outside force. Dorothy, home and all, is spirited away to Oz, accidentally committing murder in the process. Gandalf shows up and disrupts Bilbo’s peaceful existence. Hagrid comes along and tells Harry he’s been a wizard all along. In each case, we’re in for a wild time.
What does that mean for us in real life? Do we just have to sit around waiting for magic to happen to us? Is our destiny in the hands of someone or something other than ourselves?
Well, it doesn’t make for much of a dramatic story, but in contrast to the epic tales of adventure in the fictional realm, we ordinary people are responsible for changing our own narratives and altering our own paths. What we have to do is make one choice that’s different from what we would usually do.
Instead of vanilla, we can pick chocolate.
Instead of going left, we can go right.
Instead of listening to them rant, we can change the channel or end the call.
A different choice leads to a different experience. A different experience causes us, however imperceptibly, to change. And we find ourselves heading down a new road that will stimulate still more new experiences and still more change.
That’s how we grow. In contrast to the fictional hero being wrenched violently from their status quo, we can be intentional. We can deliberately decide to learn something new, go somewhere we’ve never been before, or do things in a way we’ve never done them. And we can make such a choice whenever we feel like it instead of waiting for our circumstances to dictate the changes for us.
Many of us resist the idea that a tiny shift will do anything meaningful for us. Just going to bed one minute earlier than usual is hardly noticeable. Withholding one barbed remark won’t even register with the difficult person we’re dealing with. Making a different kind of sandwich won’t spark a revolution.
But over time, so slowly that it would make for the world’s most boring movie montage, we can continue to make these tiny, barely perceptible shifts. And sure enough, just like a plant growing or the moon changing phase, we do start to see that something is happening. We’re growing and changing, too.
A good friend of mine has been working hard to alter some lifelong patterns of communication. I say, “working hard” because making different choices in the moment is so challenging. Doing things differently than the way you’ve always done them feels uncomfortable and wrong.
In conversation, my friend is challenging herself to say things that are different from what she would have said in the past — to be more direct, more transparent, and more assertive while still being kind. This causes the other person to respond differently, sometimes moving the conversation to a radically new realm of interaction. With time and practice, these new conversational habits have transformed her and her life.
Those kinds of results don’t happen just from changing your breakfast cereal. But on the other hand, maybe they do. One change leads to another, and that’s not due to the butterfly effect or other forces outside of our control. Rather, our very identity shifts as a result of making a different choice. We become “a person who does X” instead of “a person who does Y.” And then, we might find ourselves making other decisions in line with the new person we’re becoming.
We can take advantage of this to make decisions that are in line with the person we want to be. We can do easier ones at first — becoming a person who flosses, for instance — and as we gain momentum, we can become a person who runs marathons, writes books, or contributes to the community.
We may not have a wizard come to our door and drag us on an adventure. But we can choose little, boring adventures any time we want. And we might find that those choices lead to exciting adventures after all.
