“It” Happens: The Power in Choices

by Allen Klein, MA, CSP

In the 1994 popular film, “Forrest Gump,” a bumper sticker salesman running alongside Forrest points out that he has just stepped in a pile of dog droppings. When Forrest replies, “It happens,” the man replies, “What, sh*t?” To which Forrest responds, “Sometimes.” The man is then inspired to create the “Sh*t Happens” bumper sticker.

And, indeed, “it” does happen. There is no avoiding it. Life is filled with imperfections and unforeseeable events. And when they or other annoying and distressing things occur, you assign a meaning to them. Yes, you, and only you, give a weight to any situation. You determine the importance of everything in your life.

Things are the way they are—like the changing seasons, or a loved one’s dying, or rude, inconsiderate people. There are things in this world you can’t control. What you can control, however, is how you react to those things. And it is the choices you make about those things that determine what kind of day, and life, you will have.

If you only get one thing out of this article, I hope it is: “There is no inherent meaning in any thought or action. You assign a meaning to everything.”

And if there is one word behind every thought in this article, it is the word “choice,” because that is really what this book is about. You either choose to let someone else, or something else, ruin your day, or you use the power that you have and choose to not let that happen.

Life is filled with choices. I have read that every day we make between forty thousand to sixty thousand choices: Do you want vanilla or chocolate ice cream?… Mustard or mayo on your sandwich?…An aisle or a window seat on the plane?…Take the highway or a local road?…Wear the red dress or the blue one?…A tie or none?…Leaded or unleaded gas?

Every millisecond of every day, you are making choices. But those choices are not only about physical things. Without even realizing it, every time you react to a situation, what you choose is also determining your emotional state as well.

Perhaps one of the most dramatic examples of someone using the power of choice to surmount their circumstance comes from psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl. During his stay in a Nazi concentration camp, he, along with another prisoner, found something to laugh about every day. It gave him hope to look forward to the next day, and he credits it, in part, with his survival. “Everything can be taken from a man or a woman,” says Frankl, “but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

It is hard for me to imagine anything to laugh about while being incarcerated in a concentration camp. Yet, his extraordinary story addresses the issue of choice. No matter what our circumstance, we have the power to rise above it by the choices we make.