On Human Choice

Lately I've been wondering whether humans really have any influence over their own life. Sure, you may say that you can choose to read this post or not and that you certainly have a choice. But I was thinking if that choice was already made long back. What choice you take will depend upon your character. You may make some decision but that decision is taken because you are a certain type of person, and you are that certain type of person because of all the influences, the sights, sounds and ideas that you were exposed to in your life that made you the person you are now. You have some characteristics because of your genes. All these things are out of your control. Further going all those things are influenced by something else and so on but it must end somewhere. Maybe that's God. God, whatever it is, sets a stage and says,"Big Bang!" or something. Everything clicks. Do we have ANY choice? It may seem so. You may now start deciding against certain choices to prove that you can choose. But again, I(or something/one else) influenced that. And a ton of other things influenced me to write this.

But despite that theory of mine, I think, as far as we are concerned, that we DO have a choice. That's what sets an intelligent being apart. Between an stimulus and a reaction, we have the option to choose. It may be artificial to some extent. But once armed with that knowledge, once we realize that we can choose our reaction, we start making better reactions.

I was blaming other things and persons for my problems a lot lately. Not openly though. I was giving myself excuses. But today I've realized that whatever anyone may do, I can't change that. I can make a difference by changing myself. Even if the whole world goes to hell, I can choose not to go. And that is an encouraging thought.