A Quote by Michael Cunningham
What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It's what you can bear. And there it is... It was death. I chose life.
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What does it mean to regret when you have no choice?
A serious life means being fully aware of the alternatives, thinking about them with all the intensity one brings to bear on life-and-death questions, in full recognition that every choice is a great risk with necessary consequences that are hard to bear.
But there's no way to avoid regret. Don't let anybody tell you different. Regret is just life's aftertaste. No matter what you choose, you're gonna wonder if you shoulda done things different. I didn't necessarily choose wrong. I just chose. And I lived with my choice, aftertaste and all.
I regret that I was never an athlete. I regret there isn't time in life. I regret that so many of my friends have died. I regret that I was not brave at certain times in my life. I regret that I'm not beautiful. I regret that my conversation is largely with myself. I'm not part of the conversation of the world.
By 'coming to terms with life' I mean: the reality of death has become a definite part of my life; my life has, so to speak, been extended by death, by my looking death in the eye and accepting it, by accepting destruction as part of life and no longer wasting my energies on fear of death or the refusal to acknowledge its inevitability. It sounds paradoxical: by excluding death from our life we cannot live a full life, and by admitting death into our life we enlarge and enrich it.
You think because you face situations not of your making that you exercise no choice? That you are helpless? To the contrary, child. Your whole life has been full of choices. Hiding from a hard truth is a choice. Surrender - even to the inevitable - is a choice. Even in death there is a choice. You may have no control over the time or manner of your death, but you can choose how you face it.
Psychologically, the choice "to think or not" is the choice "to focus or not." Existentially, the choice "to focus or not" is the choice "to be conscious or not." Metaphysically, the choice "to be conscious or not" is the choice of life or death.
Death is always less painful and easier than life! You speak true. And yet we do not, day to day, choose death. Because ultimately, death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice. Death is what you get when there are no choices left to make.
Every act of irreverence for life, every act which neglects life, which is indifferent to and wastes life, is a step towards the love of death. This choice man must make at every minute. Never were the consequences of the wrong choice as total and as irreversible as they are today. Never was the warning of the Bible so urgent: 'I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life, that you and your children may live.'
I cannot regret it. They tell us in the temple that true joy is found only in freedom from the Wheel that is death and rebirth, that we must come to despise earthly joy and suffering, and long only for the peace of the presence of the eternal. Yet I love this life on Earth, Morgan, and I love you with a love that is stronger than death, and if sin is the price of binding us together, life after life across the ages, then I will sin joyfully and without regret, so that it brings me back to you, my beloved!
If we have only one that can govern, and we chose him... does that mean we're not democratic?
What does it mean to feel "in control" of your life? What I mean by control is the ability to make a choice. Personal sovereignty means that you choose from what is available in order to be intentional about your life...When you feel in control of your life, you know yourself to be the author of your own actions and know that you always have choices.
If I stand alone, It does not mean, I am any less a Human, If my arms do not hold another, It does not mean, They are incapable of holding, If my tongue is silent, And never speaks the words of Love, It does not mean, That it will be mute, When the time comes, That the words can sincerely be spoken. And just because the World, Has not yet introduced, The one that will share my Life, It certainly does not mean, That I am incapable, Of Loving.
Why does man regret, even though he may endeavour to banish any such regret, that he has followed the one natural impulse, rather than the other; and why does he further feel that he ought to regret his conduct? Man in this respect differs profoundly from the lower animals.
My own mother fought to make herself more than a possession; she lived her life as a mother who chose when she would have children, and a wife who could earn a living if she so chose. I want my daughters to enjoy that same choice.
The Good News borne by our risen Messiah who chose not one race, who chose not one country, who chose not one language, who chose not one tribe, who chose all of humankind!
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