Choices

I dived right into the AP discussion on choices between a sahm and a wohm. What inevitably crops up at discussions like this is the 'no choice' argument. Without fail, you will get someone saying this.

I do not believe that we lack choice. Even Adam had a choice in the Garden and look what the silly man decided! Since the day mankind was made, we've always had choices.

So I cannot understand why some would choose to retreat behind the 'no choice' excuse for their lives being the way they are. And I suspect, those who do, generally tend to be unhappy and vaguely discontented. They would rather look over the fence at their neighbour's garden, marvel or envy at what is there, then to spend time thinking about how they want their garden to look and fixing it up!

To say that one does not have a choice in life is to imply a certain helplessness, a gloomy doom -our lives are tossed about at the mercy of the fates. The religious may even call this - God's will. But to me, I think it is a travesty to blame the state of our lives as 'God's will'. God has His will but He surely gave us free will to decide how we want to live. There are many things that we have no influence over and we accept these unexpected little meteors He throws in our paths - an illness, a death, the collapse of a bank, bad weather, traffic jams on the CTE (ok that's not God's will, just poor urban planning!), the haze, the tsunami etc. We accept these with equanimity because yes, God's will be done. But life is such that we also have the power of free will to decide how we should live our lives.

Maybe it is just scary to take control, to realise the power that we have in our hands to take charge of our lives, to make scary changes if necessary. It is scary to own our mistakes, and if we are not ascribing misfortune to the fates, then surely we are responsible for our own bad decisions. Far safer to just say we have no choice and live life according to someone else's script. Safer, maybe. But how unsatisfying!

Interestingly enough, Spiderman 3 had the same theme - that of choices. I won't spoil it for those who have not watched. But the issue of choices and how it changes life, and how we use those choices, certainly permeated the whole movie.

We watched Spiderman 3 on Wednesday - thanks to the nice ladies at NTUC Link's Mummy 'n' Me. My kids were all agog, and those who were within earshot of us must have caught the kids 'whispering': "Eh, its my turn to have the popcorn! Where's my drink?" Also, Ning hissing loudly after returning from the loo: OWAIN! Why are you sitting in my chair! or heard Isaac chortling and repeating the funny lines to himself. And if you're the poor unfortunate guy sitting in front of Owain, my apologies for him kicking your seat throughout the show. And if you're the chap sitting behind me, I apologise for glowering at you - that was before I realised the one shaking my seat was my daughter Gillian jiggling away and not you kicking me. sigh. I can't take these monsters anywhere without blushing!

We had six tickets and Lolita came with us. I have to confess an ulterior motive - I wanted to watch the show in peace. And I knew that with Trin there, I would get no peace. She would want to get up and walk down the steps, stick her hands through the seat gap to the unsuspecting patron in front and so on. So I'm grateful that Lolita was there to humour her and carry her when she got cranky-sleepy and not me.

It was a good movie - fun to watch. Nothing cerebral. Just good ol'fashioned entertainment for the family. The boys loved it. Gillian sniffled at the end - but I have to confess that I did too. But at more than 2hrs long, I felt it was a wee bit too long.