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Have you ever made an illogical deal with fate? Ever created a self-defined cause and effect relationship for yourself to act as an aid to your decision making process? Before you reply in the negative, picture the following scenario. It�s a tough day at work and you�re in the mood to shoot out a stinker email directed at one of your co-workers on his or her inability to get a job done on time, You say to yourself, �Ok, I�ll give it a half hour. If I don�t hear anything till then, I�ll send out the mail.� Logical? Yes. Sensible? Definitely.
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But the question is � how often does this get converted into an illogical, unmeaningful scenario where you end up saying something absurd like �If it rains today, I�ll send out the mail and if the sun comes out, I won�t.� Mind you, there�s a big difference between the flipping of a coin and the resultant heads or tails as opposed to making a decision based on an if else scenario. The difference of course is in the probability percentage. Whereas the toss of a coin is a 50-50 either way, an if-else scenario could actually clearly indicate your own inclination towards one option or the other.
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Take for instance my case when I handed my daughter the TV remote control a couple of weeks back and thought silently to myself �If she throws it, I�ll speak to my boss about my promotion, but if she doesn�t, I won�t.� Subconsciously of course, I knew that at a year and three months she was more likely to throw the remote rather than hold onto it for any length of time, so really the probability of a throw was more likely to be about 75% and the underlying reason for the created scenario was that I wanted to add some kind of credibility to the decision I wanted to make, as if implying that the little girl�s actions were a sign from God, or an indication of His will, neither of which is likely to be the real case.
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Before you start thinking that I am deriding the concept of what I call IDS or Illogical Decision Scenarios, let me add that I am truly a practitioner of the same.
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Unfortunately, for some reason, my daughter didn�t throw the remote that day but went running across to the other side of the room, and handed it sweetly to her father. Did I go to my boss the next day? No. But I did give myself a second and third chance spaced over a few days. When the answer was finally in the affirmative, I did have that chat with my boss and subsequently I was offered a promotion, which led me to a situation where I began to wonder why I had waited so long to do what I had wanted to.
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The key really is then to understand what you truly want to do from the scenario you happen to frame for yourself. Judging by the likelihood of events, you would get a fair idea of which way your heart or mind wants to go. Of course it�s true that sometimes we create IDS� to stop ourselves from doing something. But those are the times when the heart and the mind are wrestling it out, so it seems easier to leave the choice to fate.
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Isn�t fate then also a predictable self-created scenario? Is it fate that my daughter acted like an angel that very day and I ended up waiting a week to do what I had actually wanted to do on a Monday morning? Or was my fate controlled by the IDS I created?
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How often can we then control our fate, understand our reasoning and above all do what we actually want to do without looking at an external entity to provide the answer? Not often. At some point of time or the other, we�ve all looked towards God and asked Him what we ought to do. �How do I get out of this one? Which is the right course of action? Tell me what to do. Show me a sign.� We�ve all done that. What we probably haven�t done is trust ourselves. And believe that somewhere within us lie all the answers to all our questions. Within.
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Which brings me back to my first question. Have you ever made an illogical deal with fate? If you reply now in the affirmative, ask yourself also how many times you gave yourself a second chance. You�ll find that you have more control over your fate than you realize.
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The truth is that most people have and continue to use IDS� at some point of time or the other. For some it may just be time pass whereas there are also those who take the results rather seriously and become addicted to the ease of expecting an answer from someone other than himself or herself. What�s important is not so much an interpretation of the answer, but an interpretation of the question. For life is mostly gray not black or white. Life is about choices not right or wrong. And life is about following the path that you want to, the path that your subconscious is trying to lead you to.
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I�m pretty sure I won�t be handing my daughter the remote control again.
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