The Choices We Make

Shirley, it is a sad fact that ultimately we each can only control our decisions. How the story ends is up to fate (for lack of a better way to describe it).
 

Lon said:
The black kid still has many choices to make that will impact his life forever. Stay in school and learn. Keep off drugs and don't sell them. Choose black friends with worthy goals and ambition. Shirley, there are many many examples of blacks that have been able to rise above their rotten environment because of the good choices they made.
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Why must the choose only black friends?
 
Lon said:
The black kid still has many choices to make that will impact his life forever. Stay in school and learn. Keep off drugs and don't sell them. Choose black friends with worthy goals and ambition. Shirley, there are many many examples of blacks that have been able to rise above their rotten environment because of the good choices they made.
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Lon, read my post above yours.
 

I think that there comes a time in kids lives – usually around age 12 or so – when they have to decide whether or not they want to associate (“hang out”) with nice kids who are going to do something positive with their lives or those who are already showing signs of being trouble. Sometimes the parent steps in, sometimes other friends or teacher will nudge them. And sometimes they are ridiculed, bullied and afraid not to go along with the bad crowd. But ultimately they make the choices as they get older.
 
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applecruncher said:
I think that there comes a time in kids lives – usually around age 12 or so – when they have to decide whether or not they want to associate (“hang out”) with nice kids who are going to do something positive with their lives or those who are already showing signs of being trouble. Sometimes the parent steps in, sometimes other friends will nudge them, sometimes they are bullied, but ultimately they make the choice as they get older.
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When my daughter was in her last year of junior high (which was 7-9th grade here at the time), she came to us and said that she was concerned with the direction that some of her friends were going and asked to attend another high school. I told her to research the high schools in town and we'd move into that district. She did and we did and she prospered. Good choices made.
 
What some state is a choice is often just a reaction to a set of circumstances. Yes, some people knowingly make bad decisions but often they don't realise it's a bad decision until they've borne the consequences.
 
My high school motto was "Faber est quisque fortunae" which was translated as "Every man is the maker of his own fortune". Interesting, given the fact that we were a girls school.

Internalising this I began to believe that I alone was responsible for my good fortune in life, completely overlooking the place and time of my birth, the family into which I was born, the excellent education that was available to me and the government assistance in the form of health and public transport.

Certainly, my efforts and choices were significant but many girls of my era had much narrower choices and many people not as lucky as I weren't even aware that they had choices.

Personal responsibility is commendable and should be encouraged as long as it doesn't lead to blindness to the difficulties others have struggled with.
 
Well I'm going to make myself wildly unpopular here, but I just finished my brandy and don't give a ...
I am thoroughly convinced that there is no free will. It has been proven that our brains make decisions before we are aware of them. Our consciousness thinks it is making them, but its actually just witnessing the result. Its kind of like the forward observer for an artillery battery, noticing the result of our actions and forwarding the information back to correct the next shot. There is no doubt in my mind that its all luck. People are no more to be blamed for their actions than the next hurricane is. By the same token, no one can take credit for being a wonderful person. We are who we are, strictly because of who our parents were, where and when we happened to be born, and the random chance of what life happened to throw at us.
My personal observations have shown me this is true, long before I knew anything about the workings of the brain. The brain is all. We are not responsible for its make up, or what happens to it environmentally or physically. The person we are today, will not be the person we are tomorrow. Similar maybe, but changed none the less. Throw in a stroke or dementia, and its a whole new ball game. I apologize if I have offended anyone. I am just a wee bit tipsy, but it feels good to get this off my chest. :wiggle:

Addendum: I just see that DW just beat me to the punch. I am surprised, because I expected us to disagree
 
I think when we make good choices in life, it helps to make our journey easier......life is made up of our choices (good or bad) AND whatever fate brings into our life that we have no control over, how we handle both of these determines our character and place in life.
 
Well, Underock, the kind of choice I was talking about was that this group of boys/young men harrassed and shot and killed an older man who was just standing out in his own driveway one recent early evening. They had no connection to him, just decided it would be a kick to kill him; they didn't rob him, just killed him and left. IMHO, NO amount of circumstances, poverty, or anything else makes that anything but a CHOICE, and the responsibility is those young men's alone. And nothing that was present/lacking in their environments justifies or softens such action. Period.
 
Butterfly said:
Well, Underock, the kind of choice I was talking about was that this group of boys/young men harrassed and shot and killed an older man who was just standing out in his own driveway one recent early evening. They had no connection to him, just decided it would be a kick to kill him; they didn't rob him, just killed him and left. IMHO, NO amount of circumstances, poverty, or anything else makes that anything but a CHOICE, and the responsibility is those young men's alone. And nothing that was present/lacking in their environments justifies or softens such action. Period.
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It has been stated on several occasions by different psychologists that we sometimes will do things as a group that we would not do alone. As a group, thrill killing is not new, especially in the inner cities.
 
My life started out wonderful. I had and always did have a wonderful Mom and Dad. My Dad was career military. When I turned 14, my life suddenly changed as I became involved with older guys that were bad seeds, as my Mom used to say. By the time I was 16, I had been arrested a number of times for doing some pretty awful things. At my last juvenile hearing, the judge had ordered me to reform school. My Dad immediately asked the judge that if he sent me to military school, if he would wave the incarceration. The judge took a recess and went back to his chambers. He was out for almost 2 hours. When he came back in to the hearing room, he told my Dad that he would approve such a move, but he would be receiving a monthly report on my behavior and academics and if any of these showed signs of no improvement that he would re-invoke the commitment to the juvenile facility. My Dad took me aside when we got home and he told me straight out that today, I was given a second chance to improve my life. From here on out, my life will be dependent upon the "choices" that I make in my life. That always stuck with me, even to this day and I also taught it to my children as they were growing up. That day was probably the biggest event in my life. My life took on a new meaning that day and I was over-whelmed with everything that took place that day. It was as if I was born again, but not in a Christian sense. From that day on, I began a new life.

I felt blessed to have been given that second chance and took full advantage of it. Without going further into my life events, I can say proudly that I am a success story.

 
oldman, a most moving story. If it could only be repeated in the cases of many of the young delinquents (no offense intended!) of today's times. imp
 
Oldman, A great story with a happy ending. I'm not going to muck it up with my armchair philosophizing. I congratulate you!
 

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