Option is Power

I remember growing up with the words ‘option is power’. In fact, there was a book I read in my early childhood that had that title. It was really about always having a plan so one is never stranded or at least without an opportunity to change course.

What no one knows really teaches you about proactiveness is that it is a subtle course in anxiety. Living life with a backup plan for your backup plan is something many of us recognise.

Several of my friends are on this list, including me and there is something common to us, we have trust issues. We have vivid experience with disappointment that we even plan for others in advance to prevent them from disappointing us.

We take this with us into our relationships, too, so much that it may even seem like we have a backup plan for the afterlife LOL.

Trust or trusting is very nuanced that sometimes you think you are trusting, yet time and one’s actions will reveal the absence of trust.

You then realise that what you call trust is the continuous hustle to make everything perfect. You don`t trust that things will work out, you would rather trust that you will be there to ensure that things don’t fall apart by having a contingency plan for even your contingency plan.

The thing is, you spend so much time worrying about how everything could go south, a full-time event management role in your life, that you have so little time to enjoy the event or even appreciate everything that is already working out. The worst part is that there is no break, since life is an ongoing project, such that you have to create space to breathe or keep catching your breath in an endless chase from one moment to the other.

While this narrative seems to deviate from the wisdom in option, it does not eliminate the potential that choice presents.

Option really is power, but with such power comes commensurate responsibility to wield it appropriately and maybe the constant reminder of what option should really do for you.

Having options is really about the perspective and mentality that it offers- the ability to relax knowing that many paths could lead to your dreams, even though you can only visualise the familiar.

Also, that option is not about immediacy or permanence but about availability. Just because you cannot see your options does not mean that it does not exist. It is merely that one is not cognizant of it.

This was a lovely reminder I got from a chat with an acquaintance. When we make decisions, we like to think of their life altering implications so much that we forget that there is always a road that leads to nowhere and somewhere equall.

The point is there will always be a path to follow and if it exist for following, it can equally be unfollowed that is also an option. It does not always have to be about creating new paths; it could also be also be about unfollowing a direction or even being comfortable getting lost knowing that is also a journey.

I don’t know what you will make of this post but for me is that I can never run out of options. So maybe this is my sign to lay back, smell the roses and let the paths unfold.

Xoxo

Dcconnoisseur.