Oftentimes when we make certain choices we are given the luxury of time to think things through, evaluate our options, then choose to take a specific action towards a situation. However, when we are faced with situations when it require us to make a snap choice, do we always make it a wise one? In that split seconds, when we are forced to make a choice about our actions, what happens?
There are certain categories of people who encounter such situations more regularly than others. For instance, a policeman needing to make a choice whether to approach a supposedly suspect, a trader in the stock market needing to make a choice to buy or to sell and at what price, a nurse or doctor in an ER needing to make a choice whether to send the patient home or to give him the necessary medication.
Research has shown that when some of these individuals make such snap choices, they are correct on average. What that means is that given expert knowledge or intimate understanding of the situation at hand can allow the individual to make a correct choice. Are there times when snap choices when made have gone astray? The answer is of course, yes.
When needing to make snap choices, especially when in situations that are really high pressured or when the person is highly strung, what happens to that individual is that their ability to make a correct snap choice breaks down. They no longer take into consideration the peripheral information available and hence make a wrong choice.
Hence, the next question is, can such wrong choices be avoided? The answer is of course, yes, again. The ability to make a better choice can be trained, conditioned in the mind of the individual such that when a similar situation arise, it allows the individuals to draw from their previous encounters and choose accordingly.
So, the challenge for today is: Think about your snap choices!
Step 1: Pick one snap choice that you've made previously that you wish you didn't.
Step 2: Identify what was the trigger that cause you to make that snap choice.
Step 3: How will you want your choice of action to be instead?
Step 4: Visual yourself in that situation again first making that unwise choice, then create another visual of yourself in that similar situation and making the better choice. Bring the first picture in full view in front of you and have the second picture shrunk to a thumbnail size and place it at the lower left-hand corner of the first picture. Now, in a second, enlarge the second picture so big that it covers the first picture entirely. Do this for at least 6 times. Now, see what happens when you visualise yourself in a similar situation again. Do you see the first or second picture?
Love and respect,
Melvyn Tan
Friday, November 10, 2006
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Consistent Choices
Building from the differentiation of conscious vs unconscious choices comes consistent choices.
Now, let me ask you. If you know someone who say he'll do one thing but instead he does something else, what will most of us think of him? That guy is not reliable. He says one thing but does another. He is not trustworthy. I'll never do business with him again. In short, what we'll say of him is that, he is inconsistent. And as human beings, we have the need for being seen as consistent. Because, we want others to see us as honest, reliable, trustworthy, and most importantly, consistent.
Of course consistent makes us 'look' good. There is another extremely important reason why consistency is great. Imagine if you decide on going on a diet. So because of impulse, (maybe it was something that someone said) you decided to lose weight. The first day you starve and even exercise. All those around you were cheering you on and you're feeling pretty good about yourself. Then the next day you decided to lower your food intake again and start taking the stairs. And this goes on for another day. Then what happens? You probably feel tired and now your body is aching. The hunger pangs start striking again. You feel like you needed a break. You then decide to stop exercising and that leads to you gaining back your weight and you start saying to yourself, its no use. So, you give up.
What happened here is a classic case of individuals who decide to go out and do something because they were either motivated by something someone said, or they were influenced by their friends. They do it for a while, then stop. By being inconsistent, we fail to reach our goals. Yes, we all slip sometimes, but until you decide to get on your feet again and commit to working on it again, this is when you really FAIL. Of course, one of the reasons why we slipped back to our old ways was because we have not changed something at a deeper level or we have not satisfied the intent with another more resourceful behaviour, this will be discussed later.
Being unaware of unconscious choices will cause us to get results that may not be consistent. For those of you who've been shopping with your little ones, you'll know what I'm saying. You go with your little ones to a supermarket, get approached by a sales person who invites you and your little ones to taste a particular food or snack in small cups or scoops. You then turned to them and asked if they liked it. They nod in agreement as their chorus of "yeahs" rang through the aisle. You buy it and when you feed them back home, they don't want to eat it after the first time. Now you're wondering if you've been duped into buying something that differs from what you've tasted. What happened here is that as you are unaware of your unconscious choices, you will have difficulty trying to figure out why something happened like this one day and then its totally different another!
And what if you are a salesperson. Because you are unaware of how you make certain choices, you are not able to consistently replicate your results over and over again. Think about that!
Now, if you want to be able to make consistent choices, then you'll need to be aware of how you arrive at those choices so that you are able to either replicate it (if its useful) or stop doing it (if its not useful).
Challenge for you: Identify your consistent choices!
Step 1: Identify one useful and one not useful choice that you've made consistently up until now.
Step 2: State how has this useful choice been helping you and how this not useful choice has been hurting you.
Step 3: How else can you apply this useful to other areas in your life where you can see some benefits? As for the not useful choice, what might be your intention behind this behaviour?
Love and respect,
Melvyn Tan
Now, let me ask you. If you know someone who say he'll do one thing but instead he does something else, what will most of us think of him? That guy is not reliable. He says one thing but does another. He is not trustworthy. I'll never do business with him again. In short, what we'll say of him is that, he is inconsistent. And as human beings, we have the need for being seen as consistent. Because, we want others to see us as honest, reliable, trustworthy, and most importantly, consistent.
Of course consistent makes us 'look' good. There is another extremely important reason why consistency is great. Imagine if you decide on going on a diet. So because of impulse, (maybe it was something that someone said) you decided to lose weight. The first day you starve and even exercise. All those around you were cheering you on and you're feeling pretty good about yourself. Then the next day you decided to lower your food intake again and start taking the stairs. And this goes on for another day. Then what happens? You probably feel tired and now your body is aching. The hunger pangs start striking again. You feel like you needed a break. You then decide to stop exercising and that leads to you gaining back your weight and you start saying to yourself, its no use. So, you give up.
What happened here is a classic case of individuals who decide to go out and do something because they were either motivated by something someone said, or they were influenced by their friends. They do it for a while, then stop. By being inconsistent, we fail to reach our goals. Yes, we all slip sometimes, but until you decide to get on your feet again and commit to working on it again, this is when you really FAIL. Of course, one of the reasons why we slipped back to our old ways was because we have not changed something at a deeper level or we have not satisfied the intent with another more resourceful behaviour, this will be discussed later.
Being unaware of unconscious choices will cause us to get results that may not be consistent. For those of you who've been shopping with your little ones, you'll know what I'm saying. You go with your little ones to a supermarket, get approached by a sales person who invites you and your little ones to taste a particular food or snack in small cups or scoops. You then turned to them and asked if they liked it. They nod in agreement as their chorus of "yeahs" rang through the aisle. You buy it and when you feed them back home, they don't want to eat it after the first time. Now you're wondering if you've been duped into buying something that differs from what you've tasted. What happened here is that as you are unaware of your unconscious choices, you will have difficulty trying to figure out why something happened like this one day and then its totally different another!
And what if you are a salesperson. Because you are unaware of how you make certain choices, you are not able to consistently replicate your results over and over again. Think about that!
Now, if you want to be able to make consistent choices, then you'll need to be aware of how you arrive at those choices so that you are able to either replicate it (if its useful) or stop doing it (if its not useful).
Challenge for you: Identify your consistent choices!
Step 1: Identify one useful and one not useful choice that you've made consistently up until now.
Step 2: State how has this useful choice been helping you and how this not useful choice has been hurting you.
Step 3: How else can you apply this useful to other areas in your life where you can see some benefits? As for the not useful choice, what might be your intention behind this behaviour?
Love and respect,
Melvyn Tan
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Conscious vs Unconscious choices
Once we have learned about how making different "CHOICES" will have an impact on our action, and hence the results we get in life. This in turn determine our destiny or future. Therefore, up until now, the type of results that you have are a consequence of your choices you made earlier. Perhaps just think for a second, how some of the choices that you have made have brought you to where you are now. Further, just imagine that for some reason, if you have made a different choice, your results now could be drastically different.
To explain this, we can think of flying a plane as a metaphor. You see, at take off, the pilot will steer the plane in a particular direction based on the calculations and using the instruments to help him. Along the way, imagine just a 1-degree divergent made can impact on difference between the final destination. We've always joked that pilots making their way to Singapore, and it being such a small island, could end up in Batam, Indonesia or Johor, Malaysia if they just made a small divergent in terms of direction.
Of course some of the seemingly silly choices we made in the past could have landed us in some trouble; and in retrospect we can choose to laugh it off or we can choose to hold on to the negative emotions. Either way, we made a choice and with that choice, it can determine if we will just 'move on' or we are 'stuck'. Some of us let those choices and its consequences hold us hostage by choosing to hang on to the negative emotions. We all have experiences like this. However, some of us chose consciously, while some of us have made an unconscious choice. And because of the latter, it has resulted in us sabotaging our own plans.
To deal with those conscious choices that have seemingly not so good consequences is a lot easier (I am not saying it is easy). However, to deal with those unconscious choices can be a little tricky. First, for the person who have made this unconscious choice earlier on in life and hence caused a seemingly not so good consequence, at this moment, he probably does not even know about it. Without acknowledging or being aware of the fact that you may have made a lousy unconscious choice in the past could result in denial. A coach or a mentor may see that and alert you. But because you have made the choice in an unconscious fashion, you may even choose to not realise it.
Sometimes these unconscious choices can be good, while other times it can have adverse effects on your performance. Whether its good or adverse; the fact that you are unaware (it being an unconscious choice) means you have no idea how you arrive at those choices, which means even if you want to replicate the results you can't. Or even if you want to stop making such choices that are affecting your performance in an adverse manner, you can't. Its a typical situation like when you are on a run, and your friend/colleague ask you how do you do it; and you just say, "I don't know". Or if you are feeling frustrated because you have stopped a habit successfully in the past, but suddenly because of certain elements you are now on it again and you are feeling frustrated because you want to stop!
Challenge for you: Pick one habit you'll like to stop and do this as an initial phase
Take the following steps:
Step 1: What about this habit do you not like?
Step 2: If you stop this habit for good, what good does it do for you?
Step 3: What is the cause of you not being able to stop this habit?
Step 4: Every time when you need to indulge in this habit, what goes through your mind?
Step 5: What will happen if you do not stop this habit?
Step 6: What will you replace this habit with and yet retain the good intention of the behaviour?
Love and respect,
Melvyn Tan
To explain this, we can think of flying a plane as a metaphor. You see, at take off, the pilot will steer the plane in a particular direction based on the calculations and using the instruments to help him. Along the way, imagine just a 1-degree divergent made can impact on difference between the final destination. We've always joked that pilots making their way to Singapore, and it being such a small island, could end up in Batam, Indonesia or Johor, Malaysia if they just made a small divergent in terms of direction.
Of course some of the seemingly silly choices we made in the past could have landed us in some trouble; and in retrospect we can choose to laugh it off or we can choose to hold on to the negative emotions. Either way, we made a choice and with that choice, it can determine if we will just 'move on' or we are 'stuck'. Some of us let those choices and its consequences hold us hostage by choosing to hang on to the negative emotions. We all have experiences like this. However, some of us chose consciously, while some of us have made an unconscious choice. And because of the latter, it has resulted in us sabotaging our own plans.
To deal with those conscious choices that have seemingly not so good consequences is a lot easier (I am not saying it is easy). However, to deal with those unconscious choices can be a little tricky. First, for the person who have made this unconscious choice earlier on in life and hence caused a seemingly not so good consequence, at this moment, he probably does not even know about it. Without acknowledging or being aware of the fact that you may have made a lousy unconscious choice in the past could result in denial. A coach or a mentor may see that and alert you. But because you have made the choice in an unconscious fashion, you may even choose to not realise it.
Sometimes these unconscious choices can be good, while other times it can have adverse effects on your performance. Whether its good or adverse; the fact that you are unaware (it being an unconscious choice) means you have no idea how you arrive at those choices, which means even if you want to replicate the results you can't. Or even if you want to stop making such choices that are affecting your performance in an adverse manner, you can't. Its a typical situation like when you are on a run, and your friend/colleague ask you how do you do it; and you just say, "I don't know". Or if you are feeling frustrated because you have stopped a habit successfully in the past, but suddenly because of certain elements you are now on it again and you are feeling frustrated because you want to stop!
Challenge for you: Pick one habit you'll like to stop and do this as an initial phase
Take the following steps:
Step 1: What about this habit do you not like?
Step 2: If you stop this habit for good, what good does it do for you?
Step 3: What is the cause of you not being able to stop this habit?
Step 4: Every time when you need to indulge in this habit, what goes through your mind?
Step 5: What will happen if you do not stop this habit?
Step 6: What will you replace this habit with and yet retain the good intention of the behaviour?
Love and respect,
Melvyn Tan
Saturday, November 04, 2006
How making better choices can change the world
Starting with a singular perspective, the choices we make, personal or otherwise, will impact on the kind of action we will take. Hence, this leads to the type of results we will get. And ultimately, its the results that determine our lives. Following from this singular perspective, when we elevate to a 2-person situation, this gets a little more interesting.
Let's use an example.
Say, John is a really good-tempered guy. However, what he encountered one day really shook him up and rubbed him the wrong way. He gets really upset and this time instead of keeping his cool, he chose to let it all out. If John is a hermit who lives up in the mountain, his choice to outwardly expression of his reaction might only disturb the silence and tranquility enjoyed by the animals there. However, if John lives in the city, and he is with someone who doesn't know him very well who happened to go out with him.
This instance is going to create an impact on John's friend that she might say, "Wow, what a temper!" Worse, John might even choice to take it out on the friend (as I mentioned, this time he really lost it). Assume his friend is someone who is easily affected by others emotionally, and she choice to get really disappointed, not just with John but also choice to lose interest in what she does for the rest of the day (as her mind is now preoccupied with John lashing out at her in public and having people turn and stare). Because of the choice that John make at the initial stage, it can cause a chain of events with his friend choosing to feel disappointed, hence choosing to ignore the people around her, which in turn upset them and on and on.
I suppose you already know by know that when we view the choices we make from a systems perspective, it began to dawn on us how our choices can really impact either positively or otherwise on the people, situation, and climate around us. Increasingly as individuals living in the city and facing a rising level of pressure, either from work or at home, this can result in individuals choosing to behave in the manner that John did. And the consequence of that really has an impact on not just the people around you but also the community.
So, therefore, making better choices can indeed change the world.
Challenge for you: Watch your choices!
Take the following steps:
Step 1: What is that 1 choices that you made today, you can consider it as "good"?
Step 2: How did this choice impact on yourself and also the people around you?
Step 3: In the future, how can you use this choice to respond to a possible challenging situation?
Love and respect,
Melvyn Tan
Let's use an example.
Say, John is a really good-tempered guy. However, what he encountered one day really shook him up and rubbed him the wrong way. He gets really upset and this time instead of keeping his cool, he chose to let it all out. If John is a hermit who lives up in the mountain, his choice to outwardly expression of his reaction might only disturb the silence and tranquility enjoyed by the animals there. However, if John lives in the city, and he is with someone who doesn't know him very well who happened to go out with him.
This instance is going to create an impact on John's friend that she might say, "Wow, what a temper!" Worse, John might even choice to take it out on the friend (as I mentioned, this time he really lost it). Assume his friend is someone who is easily affected by others emotionally, and she choice to get really disappointed, not just with John but also choice to lose interest in what she does for the rest of the day (as her mind is now preoccupied with John lashing out at her in public and having people turn and stare). Because of the choice that John make at the initial stage, it can cause a chain of events with his friend choosing to feel disappointed, hence choosing to ignore the people around her, which in turn upset them and on and on.
I suppose you already know by know that when we view the choices we make from a systems perspective, it began to dawn on us how our choices can really impact either positively or otherwise on the people, situation, and climate around us. Increasingly as individuals living in the city and facing a rising level of pressure, either from work or at home, this can result in individuals choosing to behave in the manner that John did. And the consequence of that really has an impact on not just the people around you but also the community.
So, therefore, making better choices can indeed change the world.
Challenge for you: Watch your choices!
Take the following steps:
Step 1: What is that 1 choices that you made today, you can consider it as "good"?
Step 2: How did this choice impact on yourself and also the people around you?
Step 3: In the future, how can you use this choice to respond to a possible challenging situation?
Love and respect,
Melvyn Tan
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Are people who make good choices born or made?
As I shared with one of my Aikido friends this morning during training about my idea of writing a book on Making a Choice, he asked an extremely pertinent question, "why did you choose to write about making a choice?"
Great question! It has continuously amazed me that the way in which companies choose to embark on strategy A or strategy B can lead them to greatness or cause them to disappear from the surface of the earth. There are so many illustrious examples you can find. Just take a read of Jim Collins' Good to Great. Also, there are many individuals who made certain choices in their lives and that completely change their paths. Again, many examples to quote. Just look individuals like Oprah Winfrey and you'd know what I'm talking about.
I believe that when it comes making a choice, we all go through a process. For us, some of our choices are rather personal and we sometimes feel that as its a personal choices it ends there. Period.
What we sometimes don't see, or choose not to see, is that some of these choices we make will have an impact on the people around us. Think about a spouse who chose to quit on a job without an impending offer, and worse without a discussion with the other, and you will know what I mean. On a larger scale, the choices we make at work will also impact on the people who work with us, whom we work for, and even on our community to a certain extent.
With that in mind, we must take responsibility for the choices we make consciously, and more importantly for the choices that we make subconsciously. As a result of our subconscious choices, we fail to notice how our behaviours can cause others to like or dislike us. In terms of our professional lives, our subconscious choices can lead us to success or, yes, failures (let's call it feedback from hereon).
Expanding on that, working with executives and leaders some have shown to make really good choices, and what's equally important is their ability to make their choices in an extremely timely manner. Oftentimes, their choices will lead their organisation to leverage on a rising trend or avoid an expensive mistake.
So one could ask, are people who make good choices born or made? Of course, if we are not able to decipher how these great executives and leaders make such timely good choices, we'll tend to lean towards it being born. But once we realise that certain patterns are surfaced and when we are able to go to those people who make really good choices, ask them in retrospect to re-construct it, we are then able to allow individuals to learn how to make better choices.
Now, being able to learn how to make better choices not only help those of us who sometimes feel we can make better choices, but also to enable us to continuously and consistently make better choices. The reason why consistency is so critical is because if we are not able to make consistently better choices, then our journey towards excellence will be paved with speed-bumps. Sure, there will be time when despite all our efforts we still end up making not too wise choices (in retrospect), but because we are able to decipher why we made those choices, we can then heighten our awareness of the particular cause that trigger us to make such a choice.
From today onwards, I will want to challenge you to model what we discuss here.
Challenge for you: Be mindful of your choices!
You may want to take the following steps:
Step 1: Look out for 5 choices that you have made.
Step 2: Identify which of those choices were good or not so good ones.
Step 3: Then identify what is the particular cause that trigger you to make those choices.
Love and respect,
Melvyn Tan
Great question! It has continuously amazed me that the way in which companies choose to embark on strategy A or strategy B can lead them to greatness or cause them to disappear from the surface of the earth. There are so many illustrious examples you can find. Just take a read of Jim Collins' Good to Great. Also, there are many individuals who made certain choices in their lives and that completely change their paths. Again, many examples to quote. Just look individuals like Oprah Winfrey and you'd know what I'm talking about.
I believe that when it comes making a choice, we all go through a process. For us, some of our choices are rather personal and we sometimes feel that as its a personal choices it ends there. Period.
What we sometimes don't see, or choose not to see, is that some of these choices we make will have an impact on the people around us. Think about a spouse who chose to quit on a job without an impending offer, and worse without a discussion with the other, and you will know what I mean. On a larger scale, the choices we make at work will also impact on the people who work with us, whom we work for, and even on our community to a certain extent.
With that in mind, we must take responsibility for the choices we make consciously, and more importantly for the choices that we make subconsciously. As a result of our subconscious choices, we fail to notice how our behaviours can cause others to like or dislike us. In terms of our professional lives, our subconscious choices can lead us to success or, yes, failures (let's call it feedback from hereon).
Expanding on that, working with executives and leaders some have shown to make really good choices, and what's equally important is their ability to make their choices in an extremely timely manner. Oftentimes, their choices will lead their organisation to leverage on a rising trend or avoid an expensive mistake.
So one could ask, are people who make good choices born or made? Of course, if we are not able to decipher how these great executives and leaders make such timely good choices, we'll tend to lean towards it being born. But once we realise that certain patterns are surfaced and when we are able to go to those people who make really good choices, ask them in retrospect to re-construct it, we are then able to allow individuals to learn how to make better choices.
Now, being able to learn how to make better choices not only help those of us who sometimes feel we can make better choices, but also to enable us to continuously and consistently make better choices. The reason why consistency is so critical is because if we are not able to make consistently better choices, then our journey towards excellence will be paved with speed-bumps. Sure, there will be time when despite all our efforts we still end up making not too wise choices (in retrospect), but because we are able to decipher why we made those choices, we can then heighten our awareness of the particular cause that trigger us to make such a choice.
From today onwards, I will want to challenge you to model what we discuss here.
Challenge for you: Be mindful of your choices!
You may want to take the following steps:
Step 1: Look out for 5 choices that you have made.
Step 2: Identify which of those choices were good or not so good ones.
Step 3: Then identify what is the particular cause that trigger you to make those choices.
Love and respect,
Melvyn Tan
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
God-given gift
We all have one God-given gift. Every single one of us. Some of us use it wisely, some of us may not use it in the best way possible, and some of us don't even realise we have it!
From my research over the last few years and also in spending time to understand what differentiate successful people from the rest, it shows up time and again, which is how they use this gift.
This God-given gift is given to us all. Everyone has it. How we use it will determine our results.
So, what is this God-given gift? It is, CHOICE.
Oftentimes, our choice is a result of our situation.
For instance, if I needed money (situation), my choices could be (choice 1) to get a job, (choice 2) start a business, (choice 3) marry a rich spouse (hee), (choice 4) just live off your parents, or worse (choice 5) to rob a bank!
So, the choice we make in any given situation will determine what kind of results we get.
Say if you chose choice 1. Yes, you get a job and hence receive a salary, which is fine. However, over some time you may see your neighbours getting a nicer TV, a nicer car, a nicer sofa; and hence you wished your salary was higher.
If choice 2 was your option, you may find it extremely difficult to get the first client, have a positive cashflow, you may even realise that you need to develop other skills in order to make some money. Then you may think, perhaps there is an easier way than this.
Choice 3 may lend you with someone who you really didn't love or care. Choice 4 may cause your parents to run out of retirement funds faster than you can say retire and hence you are back to square one. And choice 5, guess we all know what will happen.
Someone once said to me, but sometimes I don't have a choice! I said, "Well, you choose not to see the choice, or you choose to not choose. Now aren't those choices?"
Some of us use our choices subconsiously. We let the event or the environment drives us to choose. If XYZ happens, I will do ABC. If 123 was the situation, than I will take 789 as a step. And the reason we make these choices subconsiously is because, we are already conditioned to the fact that if this happens, I will do that. And when we do something over and over again, and each time we get the same or similar results, we then come to believe that this is law. That there is no other way. True, there are some universal laws that applies to us all, for example night must follow day; spring must follow winter. We do not want to fool ourselves that we can change the seasons or rearrange the planets in our solar system.
Notwithstanding universal laws, we will want to learn to make better choices.
RESULTS (EFFECT) > ACTIONS (CAUSE); where ACTIONS (EFFECT) > CHOICES (CAUSE).
Hence, if better choices produce better actions, and better actions produce better results, than we want to be able to do that over and over again. Sometimes, with the number of choices available to us, how do we make better choices?
I believe that there is a gap between situation (cause) and choices (effect). For instance, sometimes when we look back at how we reacted to a particular situation or to something someone said, and we think to ourselves, "I can't believe I said that!" or "I can't believe I did that!" So, there is something that affects the way we choose our actions.
I have decided to devote my life to engage people in a meaningful manner so that they can make better choices.
Love and respect,
Melvyn Tan
From my research over the last few years and also in spending time to understand what differentiate successful people from the rest, it shows up time and again, which is how they use this gift.
This God-given gift is given to us all. Everyone has it. How we use it will determine our results.
So, what is this God-given gift? It is, CHOICE.
Oftentimes, our choice is a result of our situation.
For instance, if I needed money (situation), my choices could be (choice 1) to get a job, (choice 2) start a business, (choice 3) marry a rich spouse (hee), (choice 4) just live off your parents, or worse (choice 5) to rob a bank!
So, the choice we make in any given situation will determine what kind of results we get.
Say if you chose choice 1. Yes, you get a job and hence receive a salary, which is fine. However, over some time you may see your neighbours getting a nicer TV, a nicer car, a nicer sofa; and hence you wished your salary was higher.
If choice 2 was your option, you may find it extremely difficult to get the first client, have a positive cashflow, you may even realise that you need to develop other skills in order to make some money. Then you may think, perhaps there is an easier way than this.
Choice 3 may lend you with someone who you really didn't love or care. Choice 4 may cause your parents to run out of retirement funds faster than you can say retire and hence you are back to square one. And choice 5, guess we all know what will happen.
Someone once said to me, but sometimes I don't have a choice! I said, "Well, you choose not to see the choice, or you choose to not choose. Now aren't those choices?"
Some of us use our choices subconsiously. We let the event or the environment drives us to choose. If XYZ happens, I will do ABC. If 123 was the situation, than I will take 789 as a step. And the reason we make these choices subconsiously is because, we are already conditioned to the fact that if this happens, I will do that. And when we do something over and over again, and each time we get the same or similar results, we then come to believe that this is law. That there is no other way. True, there are some universal laws that applies to us all, for example night must follow day; spring must follow winter. We do not want to fool ourselves that we can change the seasons or rearrange the planets in our solar system.
Notwithstanding universal laws, we will want to learn to make better choices.
RESULTS (EFFECT) > ACTIONS (CAUSE); where ACTIONS (EFFECT) > CHOICES (CAUSE).
Hence, if better choices produce better actions, and better actions produce better results, than we want to be able to do that over and over again. Sometimes, with the number of choices available to us, how do we make better choices?
I believe that there is a gap between situation (cause) and choices (effect). For instance, sometimes when we look back at how we reacted to a particular situation or to something someone said, and we think to ourselves, "I can't believe I said that!" or "I can't believe I did that!" So, there is something that affects the way we choose our actions.
I have decided to devote my life to engage people in a meaningful manner so that they can make better choices.
Love and respect,
Melvyn Tan
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