Left or Right? How Our Smallest Choices Define Us | Jada and David

Left or Right? How Our Smallest Choices Define Us

Blog by Jada Parrish | The Journal of Jada| 02/22/24

Our lives are a string of choices woven together, permeating time. Have you ever stopped and thought about how different your life would be if you had made a different choice at a particular moment? There are some choices we make throughout our lives that we know are significant. We know they will impact the trajectory of our lives, such as whom to marry, where to go to college, or accepting a new job. But the unsettling thing is that every choice we make, both large and small, drastically changes things. Sometimes, it's the smallest choices, the ones we aren't even fully aware we are making, that have the largest impacts.

What you choose to eat each day affects the overall health of your body. Leaving for work five minutes earlier could have placed you in a traffic jam that resulted in an accident. You wouldn't even exist if your parents had made slightly different choices the day you were conceived. Deciding to turn left instead of right can literally change your entire life.

Left or Right? How Our Smallest Choices Define Us - Jada And David Parrish

What leaves me so unsettled about this is that we know what's at stake when we make the larger choices about our lives, but we have no idea when a small choice could derail everything or set our lives down a path that's better than we ever imagined.

That's why decision-making can feel so paralyzing at times. You understand the consequences all the options have, but there's so much uncertainty about which way to go. So you sit stuck in place, failing to realize that the lack of a decision is a decision in itself.

Sometimes, I wonder if there are infinite different versions of our lives playing out simultaneously, and each choice we make determines which plane of experience we are on. There seems to be a futility to it. And I guess this is where intuition comes into play. We all have an inner knowing of what feels good, what fills us up, what feels wrong. I think the more we can quiet our minds and listen to that innate wisdom, the more authentic and uniquely our own our lives will feel, regardless of the outcomes of these tiny choices.

Being alive is a truly overwhelming experience, and it's a miracle in itself that each of us even exists. It's easy to get wrapped up in our own struggles and the choices that influence our lives. But don't forget our brothers and sisters all around us who are linked permanently to us through the thread of humanity. No matter what choices you make each day, big or small, always choose love, always choose joy, always choose kindness. Because you never know what the person sitting next to you is experiencing.