Life is nothing but a totality of conscious choices one makes continuously. Nobody else makes the choice for us. An employee approached his boss, “Sir, my wife and I want to ask you for a raise”. The boss replied “Oh, I will ask my wife tonight whether I should give you a raise”.

You may think somebody else decides, but in reality it is you who makes decisions. If somebody criticizes you, you choose to get offended. If someone praises, you choose to get flattered. Being habituated, you make choice unconciously, & think that the other person is influencing your decision (behaviour).

Continuous choices every minute put together decide your life. If you don’t decide & allow incidents to happen by default, your life gets in “paralysis” mode.

A man was invited by a scientist for lunch at his home. The man saw a horseshoe hanging on his wall. A horseshoe is believed to bring good luck. The man was surprised and asked the scientist, “Sir, I can’t believe that you being a scientist, also believe that horseshoe brings good luck.” The scientist replied, “No! I don’t believe in any such stupidity. But the person who gave it to me said whether I believe or not, it will bring good luck.” Thus he felt the other person made the choice for him.

We always believe we have been given unfair results, because we are not able to connect the cause and effect of things that happen in our life. We are blissfully unaware that we are the ones responsible for the consequences. We have made them happen by way of unconscious living. Understand that we always have the choice to respond differently to a situation. For example when somebody criticises us we can either get offended & react causing unpleasantness or remain calm & manage the situation intelligently. The latter is the choice if we live consciously. Thus consciously making choices in life and responding to situation would lead to a BLISSFUL life.

By Swami Paramhansa Nityananda