Our only option is choice
I still hear people arguing that we are just physically responding to stimuli and we have no real choice of what we do.
I know this is not true because of what I experience, despite what I have been told.
For example;
We have Australian Shepherds in this place I have come to call home. About three months ago one of them, Zoe, had puppies. My daughter got a little bit too close to her face and Zoe snapped at her and drew blood on her lip. I picked up my daughter and carried her away from Zoe and toward the bathroom to clean her up. As we ventured down the hallway I felt this horrible rage build up inside of me. The energy of it was incredibly strong and I was perplexed that what I felt was contradicting to what I thought and chose to do. I realize that there were many other stimuli I was feeling at the moment, probably too many to even calculate, but the rage was definitely the dominant stimulus. It is a good thing that the majority rule did not apply in this case, as the majority was screaming for war. Reacting to stimuli would have brought the story to a different ending. We feel things for reasons but we should not be a victim to everything we feel as we learn to be conscious of our choices.
This is not saying that we should always go against what we feel. It is saying that we feel many things and we are interpreting many different stimuli at any given moment. This leads me to realize that our only option is choice in light of all the variables. This realization requires me to feel responsible for my actions as well, which we know we should be.
Messages to Myself 
Enjoy reading your perspectives on human behavior, btw where is your Follow button? Or am I blind… The Follow button on top the page isn’t the one I want. Thanks for visiting my site!
Thanks! And your welcome! Hmmm, I may be blind too… If you click the follow button at the top without clicking the email option when the tab drops down, it will follow without the constant emails. Also, when somebody likes something on your page there will be a follow button inside the notification window next to their name. I will have to look into putting an actual follow button on my page, thanks for pointing that out!
OK, I usually click a follow button on a theme’s sidebar for email updates. I think the button on top puts new posts in my reader thingy which I never use… Hmmmm
Oh the email follow option! I just added it on the right sidebar at the bottom. Thanks for following!
Great insight my friend!
Thank you!
This is so true. We do not have to be victims of our emotions. I recently wrote a post called getting your emotions out of the driver’s seat. We don’t want to discount our emotions, but we do want to pause and make a choice before we react.
Thank you for your comment, I will be sure to check out the post you mentioned!