The dilemma of choice!

Listen to your inner voice and make the right choice.

Coach Ron

12/9/2025 - 6 min read

This great quote from the Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, captures the essence of choice very well! We make choices every day and every second of our lives. Though we may be aware of this or not, but choices are being made every instant by our conscious and/or sub-conscious brain. I like to think of the word choice as an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities.

Some choices are made through our conscious minds with deliberate thought, logic, planning and reasoning. Like our education, career, the company we want to work for, where do we want to live, who do you marry, to name a few. And some choices are made automatically, like, the people you like to spend your time with, your friends, your interests and passions. We may not be cognizant of these choices and may refer to them as just “preferences” but these were conscious choices at one point that you have made, but have been repeated so many times over and over, that they have been wired into neural pathways in our brains. These are made by the sub-conscious mind.

Your conscious awareness may not realize it, but your subconscious mind is constantly picking and weeding your likes and dislikes. These are stored as “preferences” or mental shortcuts for quick retrieval in the future. Every time you pick the same thing, this pattern gets etched stronger into your brain and the neurons are linked together. When the connected neurons fire together simultaneously, it is called a synapse. That is the point of an automatic decision. But it is nothing more than your pre-programmed choice that reacts to a stimulus to produce a response.

Your brain remembers these auto-choices for you, to save time and energy in the form of neural pathways. However these pathways are triggered by mental synapses. So when you go to the grocery store you (choose to) pick multi-grain bread vs white bread, white meat over red meat, low fat dressings, low sugar drinks, carb friendly foods. Auto-magically. How come?

Think back on when you made this particular choice for the first time - when you actually compared alternatives, listed pros and cons of each, decide to favor one over the other. Do you do that anymore? I bet you pick up all these things on auto-pilot. If I were to ask you why multi-grain bread, you would be quick to tell me that you “choose” to eat healthy. Because that is consistent with your values of “being healthy”. So our values affect our choices and to change our choices we must shift our values first. If we don’t do that then we are in mental conflict. e.g. imagine you were to load up on a sugary drink at a party. Felt good in the moment, didn’t it? But the next day you are going to hate yourself for doing that as it contradicted your value of “being healthy”. If your values allow for a ‘cheat’ day, then maybe you think it’s OK. Just this once.

The problem is we don’t realize these auto-choices our brain makes as they happen in a fraction of an instant(synapse!). Those choices are so much a part of us but they don’t define who we are. After all we are much more than our emotions and choices. Our choices can be replaced, altered, discarded and substituted by better ones.

Now let’s shift the scenario and talk about the emotion of anger. We may get angry due to several reasons. Intolerance of cruelty, injustice, unfairness, lies, breaking trust, manipulations, cheating or because someone comes to us with anger. It could well be our own lack of understanding of the full nuances of the situation or our own misaligned expectations from others as well. Whatever the reason may be, realize your reaction of responding with anger OR being calm in the moment is your “choice”. Or in this case you act as per your past preference, or that shortcut (neural pathway) in your brain. So if you have reacted with anger in the past, the same neural pathway will be lit by the synapse. Same predictable YOU!

But it doesn’t have to be so! You can override default behavior and start new habits and behaviors. The ability of the brain to change, called neuroplasticity, allows you to etch new neural paths and ignore old ones. Tread on the new path often enough and it strengthens whilst the old one disappears. Now you have migrated to a "new" default behavior...one that you consciously chose beforehand. One that serves you better and saves you from regret later on. No more damage control needed if damage is avoided in the first place. Smart?

You can just choose to take a deep breath and break the auto-pilot circuit that puts you in fight or flight stress mode. You can literally “choose” a different response. It ain’t easy in the moment to do so, but it ain’t impossible! People with high EQ that are emotionally intelligent and self-aware, can regulate their response to show empathy and compassion instead of anger. They are curious to find out what could have gone wrong. They don’t shoot back first, then ask questions on what happened. But it needs practice and training the mind. Don't hit the Panic button right away!

Other strategies to break the stress circuit is to count to ten and then respond. Or you could get curious and ask yourself "What could be troubling him/her"? "Could there be a misunderstanding"? Or you could tell yourself relax, I need to get to the root cause and understand the situation better, before I choose my response. Or you could say to the other person "I am sorry you feel this way, what exactly is bothering you"? Another good strategy is just listening without judging, showing empathy, even compassion. By choosing any of these strategies you are delaying the auto response long enough for your conscious brain to take control of the situation. You are preventing the emotional hijack of your brain, you are disengaging the stress circuit and avoiding the release of the stress hormone Cortisol from flooding your system. You are basically saying to yourself, wait, let me not react, let's just get "the boss" and see what he has to say.

So you see you too can be that high EQ person by being aware of your auto responses(choices) and then correcting your response mid-air to one that you consciously choose. Empathy or curiosity maybe?? This will help diffuse the situation, take your emotion out of the equation, keep you level-headed and help you understand the situation and even the person better. You can start thinking of ways to address the situation and make progress. Learn. Grow. In this case your emotion merely suggested something is off (much like a low-fuel indicator on your car dashboard) but the feeling it generated in you is totally your “choice”.

So do you want to go ahead with feeling helpless and angry and whack that indicator hard, for showing you a helpful sign?

OR

Do you want to alter your route to find the closest gas station? What will you “choose” to do?

Changing your programmed response, is simply adjusting your auto-choices and replacing them with better ones. No more he makes me angry, she makes me sad, they make me like this! Because You make yourself angry, You make yourself sad, by Your own choice. To change your reaction and behavior simply adjust the choice of your response. I choose to be not angry or not sad or not fearful rather I choose to be calm, composed but firm if I need to be. I will never hand my choice, my prerogative, over to the person in front of me. I will not let the other person dictate my choices. I completely own my choices, my responses, my behaviors and my actions! Isn't that also my "freedom"?

In conclusion, I challenge you to consider the following alternative choices and responses :

• Being miserable is a choice, so is being Happy!
• Anger is a choice, so is being Calm!
• Judging people and situations is a choice, so is Acceptance!
• Holding grudges in your mind about someone is a choice, so is Letting go!
• Being stuck in the past is a choice, so is being present in the moment!
• Being anxious about the future is a choice, so is being present in the moment!
• Quitting is a choice, so is Fighting back!
• Fear is a choice, so is being Brave!
• Having a negative outlook in life is a choice, so is staying Positive!
• Hating is a choice, so is Loving back!
• Blaming is a choice, so is Forgiving!
• Craving for what you don’t have is a choice, so is Wanting what you’ve got!
• Complaining is a choice, so is Tolerance!
• Criticizing is a choice, so is Appreciation!
• Comparing is a choice, so is Admiration!
• Condemnation is a choice, so is Respect!
• Revenge is a choice, so is Empathy!
• Helplessness is a choice, so is Resilience!
• Detachment is a choice, so is Concern!
• Partisanship is a choice, so is Objectivity!
• Ignoring is a choice, so is Focusing!
• Indifference is a choice, so is Compassion!
• Sarcasm is a choice, so is Curiosity!
• Dissatisfaction is a choice, so is Gratitude!
• Procrastination is a choice, so is Action!

Over the course of our life, we are nothing but the SUM of our values, choices, responses and actions. Your values drive your choices, your choices affect your responses which in turn affects the actions you take and hence the outcomes you achieve. Do you want it to be a virtuous expanding cycle or a defeatist shrinking cycle. The choice is always YOURS! You owe it to yourself and the people close to you to make the right substitution. So learn to choose wisely!

What new choices will you start making TODAY?