The Everyman’s Superpower (Part 4: The Choice)

(continued from Parts 1, 2, and 3)

Life can be viewed as one long string of micro-choices.

Most of these choices are made unconsciously by the autopilot of habit of course, but they are still choices.

And our conscious choices are often powerless.  Or to put it more politely,  most of us have what psychologists call an “External Locus of Control.”

During the Cold War, I was serving in the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Corps in the Republic of Korea.  I can’t say what our average day to day duties were (or much about anything my fellow spooks and I did), but I can tell you this:  most of it was not Jason-Bourne-sexy.

Sure, a bit of it may have been movie-worthy but the majority was pure tedium.  When we weren’t breaking the monotony with heroic doses of hilarity, we would philosophize into the wee hours.

One particularly memorable conversation (in Korean – so a bit of the cultural nuance is lost when told in English) began with me finding one of the KATUSAs (Korean Augmentation to the U.S. Army) crying at his workstation.

My KATUSA friend believed our lives are governed by some mysterious unseeable force called “fate.” And unfortunately for him, he believed his fate was to suffer.  His (arranged) fiancée cheated on him with his own brother.  His parents demanded he marry her anyway.  

I immediately went into solution-finding mode:  Defy your parents … Make it a marriage of convenience …  Live a secret life …  No.  No.  No.  I just wasn’t getting it.  ”Don’t you see, Joyner?  Because my fate is to suffer none of those things will work.”

I spent the rest of the night trying to break his Confucian conditioning.

His epiphany finally struck when I drew this diagram.

S = stimulus.  R = response.  C = choice.

Years later when I read Man’s Search for Meaning, I was so amused to find precisely the same notion conveyed …

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. – Viktor Frankl

… and humbled to find it conveyed by a man who battle-tested the notion in the harshest of conditions.

30 Second Sobriety Test

The power of choice is not The Everyman’s Superpower of course, but we won’t even use The Everyman’s Superpower if we are not first sobered up by the staggering importance of choice.

For example …

Step 1.  Remember

Hold in your mind all of the poor choices, bad habits, and toxic beliefs that have vexed you thus far.  (Go ahead … It’s OK.  It’s part of being human.  No one is watching.)

Step 2.  Project yourself 10 years into the future

Where will you be if you continue on that path?  How many pounds of baggage in body fat?  How many more aches and pains?  How much more debt?   How many lost friendships and chances?  How heavy the regret?

Step 3. The wish 

In that moment of realization, you wish someone would give you a time machine.  You wish you could just get the chance to go back in time and make different choices.  You wish you could explain to your past self the staggering importance of these choices.  Even these micro-choices that seemed so unimportant in the moment …

Step 4.  Your wish fulfilled

Guess what?  You were given that time machine.  You are now 10 years in the past.  What are you going to do?

What are you going to do?  Pick any that apply …

Are you going anesthetize yourself with TV and junk food?  Or get out there and move with the rhythm of nature until you become a force of it?

Are you going to let the petty nit-pricks of haters and naysayers slowly bleed your mojo?  Or make the voice of the badass you are becoming the loudest of all?

Are you going to be disheartened by the cowardly schemes of petty thieves and saboteurs?  Or nurture your resolve on a diet of grit and clean living until you discover one day your heart is unbreakable?

Are you going to let society’s guardrails channel you into the frog-boiling pot that is mediocrity?  Or power up your jetpack and go find your tribe?

Are you going to let the name that long gone villain called you rattle around in your head to this day?  Or …  you get the idea.

That’s the magnitude of the choice before you now, since you were so lucky to hitch a ride on the time machine.

What are you going to do?

Mark

P.S.  Speaking of choices … On the next (final) post you will have to choose:  Retreat back to the side of the looking glass you were on before you began this rite of passage.  Or spend $1.   That’s what it will cost ya for a spooky little comic book life manual titled The Everyman’s Superpower.

The superpower … How to use it … everything will be revealed on its pages.