Preordained Free Will

I was thinking today about all the things that can feel out of our control.   If we fall in love.  Who we fall in life with.  What we choose to do in life (or if it chooses us).  Whether or not we are healthy.  If and what and when we eat.  And so often we are tempted or challenged by things we can’t even identify.  But the one thing we can do, the only thing we can do, is choose how to respond to the situations or temptations that present themselves.  When the pain is overwhelming as it is has been, I can writhe and wither in its clutches or I can choose to be the one in charge.  In pain, still, but in charge.  Doesn’t seem possible, does it?  If I use all the things I have learned (like meditation, “journeys” through drumming, prayer, etc.) my perception of the pain changes.  It becomes more tolerable, less intense.  Not for long of course; I must keep at it every minute of every day and that just isn’t possible.  But I can get relief longer if I am aware of it as much as possible.   So I am constantly pulling myself back from the abyss.  Unless I’m on the pity potty.  And as you know from some of my entries here, I’m no stranger to it.

You see, I am beginning to think that although I believe we have free will, every single decision we make, every breath we take, every blink, every yes or no was decided before we got here.  That sounds like it’s all preordained, but really it’s not.  Not if we were the ones who made those choices before coming into consciousness.  So “we” made those decisions, just not here. But can you make choices without consciousness?  At least consciousness as we know it?  Choices we now have to live out, here on Earth? So maybe, in the end, that fight to survive or to die was made a long time ago.  From wherever it is we came from, wherever it is we will go.  I mean, what’s beyond the known Universe?  A brick wall?  And if so, what’s behind the brick wall?  It’s mind boggling.  The more I watch and read on the Universe, the more I’m convinced there must be a higher power of some sort at the controls.  I think I was counseled on what I came here to learn and agreed to the life I now have.  I just don’t know exactly what it is I’m supposed to learn from living a life of physical pain.

My challenges seem small compared with the rest of the planet.  As I always say, having a roof over my head, food in my belly, access to the medication I need, friends and family…I am indeed lucky.  I freak out, thinking I could, at any moment, lose all that.  Which is why staying in the moment is so essential.

Please, someone email me and remind me of this when I’m off the rails!!!