if you have a choice between the right or wrong

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“Be strong.

Don’t be a follower.

Always do the right thing.

If you have a choice between the right or wrong, do the right. “

Jennifer Lawrence

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reality welcome signWell. I am a huge proponent of doing the right thing.

But. We act like choices walk up and down the street wearing huge signs saying “I am the right thing.”

They do not.

It just is not that easy.

And today I am not talking about when the right thing to do is impossible, but rather when you truly do not want to follow along blindly and truly want to make the right choice and do ‘right’ and … shit … uh oh … you find that a lot of choices look ‘right.’

In this situation I can equivocally state that some ‘wrong’ is cleverly disguised as ‘right’ as they intermingle with right, somewhat right, very right, kind of right and ‘incredibly right feeling, but not practically the thing that benefits the most.’

To be clear. These choices have nothing to do with any bias with regard to what is right or wrong or even necessarily about opinions. This is simply about the fact even when you actually stop long enough to ponder <which is not often> the ‘choice du jour’ can appear to have multiple shades of ‘right.’

Uhm.

At least to you.

Because you are gonna get screwed in this situation no matter what.

I say that because while you stand there with a range of ‘rights’ in front of you I can guarantee that some loud mouthed asshat is gonna be pointing at one going “that one, that one , that one!!”

<sometimes accompanied by a lot of hand waving>

Okay. There will most likely be a number of asshats pointing at one of them.

Okay. There will also most likely be a number of asshats not even there who will eventually wave their hands and point out that you should have chosen some other ‘right’ then the one you did.

Now.

While I could simply suggest that there are just a lot of asshats out there in the world and that is part of Life … I will not.

Because the asshats will always be there and your choices will always be your choices. Yet, while the choices are yours, the outcomes are not necessarily yours <which is why ‘right’ is a very very tricky topic>.

I can honestly say that the best choice is the one you can see the farthest on, i.e., the one in which you can envision the most ripples.

friends unfluencers ripples2I do feel relatively confident saying that the best choice makers have the ‘far sight’ ability.

Let me explain far sight because it isn’t easy as ‘seeing ripples’ or even ‘see the end result.’

A choice is rarely simple cause and effect.

It is more the starting gate from which effect springs forth. And, uhm, it is not a 100 yard dash type race where you stay in your lane and everything else stays in its lane. Your choice actually enters its own little survival race needing to zig and zag in order to avoid the inevitable things which will attempt to steer it off its intended course.

It needs to be strong enough to absorb some hits.

And smart enough to adapt when appropriate.

Not everyone can see far when making a choice and not everyone can actually choose the choice with the highest likelihood of survival nor does it get any easier when all the choices in front of you appear to be some shade of ‘right’ <or, conversely, all are shades of wrong and you are simply choosing the right wrong choice>.

Truth? Even the best choice makers don’t get it right 100% of the time.

All that said.

If you think about choices this way one of two things could happen:

you can simply feel a sense of helplessness and say “well, my choice probably won’t matter in the end anyway”, or

you can just become overly cynical with regard to “right in today’s world.”

Yes. Society, life and people are relentlessly tough on ‘doing right.’

But here is what I know about choosing between right and wrong.

The attempt matters.

While it is incredibly tempting to think nothing will change … if you refuse to believe that … well … the next 10 choices you make could shape 10 different futures and maybe shape things that can happen over the next 10 years.

And that, my friends, may be the only reason to ‘do right’ when having a choice between right and wrong.

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Written by Bruce