The Courage of Making a Decision

What is the responsibility of freedom? What is it we have to do to choose what path we take, what decision we make?

Isn’t this an easy thing? Don’t we just look at the options get the facts then decide what is in our best interest? What happens if we make the wrong decision? Do we have to accept the results of our choices?

To people that have learned through trial and error from birth in the constantly changing vagaries un-written in the book of life; this process is in fact relatively easy simply because of the small increments through which it is learned. In Toto however it would be an immense undertaking for an adult unaccustomed to decision making.

That had been the job of the culture in which Americans of old had grown up in. The in-variable rules of the playground and society in general have given most of us what we refer to as “common sense”. Such macro trials as World Wars and The Great Depression have instilled in us as a culture, a societal “common sense”. In a society these rules get worked out seemingly effortlessly. That is how it happens – effortlessly - but not painlessly.

The choice that is inherent in our Freedom is not easy. Choice is usually a decision with consequences we know going in may not be what we would wish for; but the alternative we feel is worse. There are always tradeoffs we learn through interacting with society. Which ones we make, is what maturity is all about.

We as a society are in the process of losing the maturity we had held in high esteem and other countries admired. We are losing the ability to make the hard choices.

We have begun raising generations that more and more rely upon not making hard choices to try to better themselves. They at the age of 30 and 40 are still in adolescence. We are creating a generation that values eating fish far more than fishing. By definition work is hard and takes up a person’s time; that is why they get paid to work. Why would someone want to do that if they get more given to them by not working?

We were a country that had learned, through the trials and tribulations of that God given gift called Free Will, the ability to fish and that by fishing we would never be hungry. We were proud of that. However just as we sometimes dismiss the word “pursuit” in our inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness and demand happiness; we also demand wisdom without the trials and tribulations so necessary in the process.

Is it not through the trials and tribulations we go through which gives us a sense of pride in our accomplishments, is this not the way we get “skin in the game”? Is it not the journey we should enjoy more than the destination? Do not learn and grow and become a wiser person for the effort, rather than being magically somehow transported to the finish line?

By doing the same thing everyone else is doing, are we not forming a herd mentality and losing our individual freedom. Are we not becoming as slaves?

David Mamet in his book “The Secret Knowledge” writes “the essence of freedom was and is choice” His book goes through the process of the Jews being freed from the slavery of Egypt and how hard it was for them to accept the hardships of making an unlimited list of choices that came with freedom. Many as he uses the Bible to point out wished for the security of slavery.

Here is what Mamet says regarding slavery and the Socialism of the Left.

“The Jews were led through the Sea of Reeds and, in the desert, complained, and wished to return to Egypt and slavery. Life in Egypt was by no means perfect; its only attraction was the absence of the necessity of choice. But it made all people equal. No slave need choose between good and evil, morality and immorality, all such anxiety had been usurped by or surrendered to the masters.”

Mr. Mamet also in the book talks of the Bible and wisdom. “The Bible is the wisdom tradition of the West.” He also talks of the fear being instilled in the young then and today by liberals for things which they don’t understand such as work and free enterprise. He shows how what they do not know they fear and what they fear they demonize. He I think believes in the Rule of Law based upon the wisdom of the Bible as the guiding light America has followed to become the freest country in the world, where individuals have the Freedom to succeed knowing full well and being completely cognizant of the fact that they may also fail in the effort.

That the real courage lies in making the decision yes making the choice to try.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative