What is choice?

[Traveler]

As long as it is possible for someone to change their mind - have they, in reality, actually made their choice?

The Traveler

[Windseeker]

I think that Covey put it well, choice is really a response. A response to a change, to a thought, to a temptation, to an emotion.

"Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.” Stephen R. Covey

And life is a series of constant choices.

[Windseeker]

As long as it is possible for someone to change their mind - have they, in reality, actually made their choice?

And yes, I believe that even though we can always change our mind, our choices were and are still our choices.

"Choose the Right" did not come up once when I was a child and that was my decision, it's something I have to do every second of every day.

[Seminarysnoozer]

As long as it is possible for someone to change their mind - have they, in reality, actually made their choice?

The Traveler

The choice that concerns us really is what is in our heart, not what is in the mind. The mind can flip flop like a fish out of water but God can determine what our hearts desire is not just based in concrete decisions, 'do I turn right or do I turn left', but where we find pleasure, the desire of the heart. Is it in the things of this world or eternal treasures? Those are the choices that eventually become fixed in the mind and can even limit further choices. In that sense we cannot ultimately serve two masters.

I think some of the 'wailing and gnashing of teeth' done when someone realizes they have made a bad choice is that very changing of the mind even though their choice was in a different direction, their heart wasn't in it. Then there is an internal conflict that causes that anger, the wailing and gnashing of teeth.