LIFE IS A SERIES OF CHOICES

There are good and bad choices, made constantly; right and wrong ones; helpful and destructive ones, as well. We must make choices on whatever data we have at the time. That data is often not enough to make an educated choice, in which case, we must guess. Our life and the consequence of that choice to others, is as predictable as the flip of a coin or a roll of the dice.

Choices have Categorical (influenced by issues of morality in certain duties and rights) and Consequentialist (morality is in the consequences of an act)...in other words, most acts do not affect a single person but that effect covers many with its reverberations.

What, then, happens when we refuse to make a choice. Sometimes an issue just fades away, but don't count on it as few things aren't followed up. Forgetting to drink responsibly, then driving drunk so that someone is killed by you in an 'accident' and the consequences are far reaching, changing the future of many lives. If that person (as is most likely) has family, children, parents, dependents and responsibilities to many, the resulting destruction of that act is felt by all those whose lives are altered, remaining lifetimes for many of those people. Few effects from bad choices have only a short-term consequence.

War makes many orphans. What happens to them in their growing up may turn a generation of youth, as in Iraq, into haters seeking vengeance and having no trust for adults or certain groups...especially Americans, the enemy during and after the war. When people leave their choices to trust God, they've totally thrown their control away and left all those connected to them swinging in the wind.

What most people miss is that laws pose an involuntary choice of action. Many people who naturally fight that imposition, missing the whole point of the law, are looking for independence. That is not how maturity and independence are gained. The generation of the 60s and 70s, adolescents who sat in their basements tuned out on marijuana never did the developmental work needed for a normal adolescent. Now these people may have important positions, families, and we wonder why such poor life choices are being made in such a public way.

Healthy coping mechanisms should be taught in grade school and through college. The way to think through choices should be a part of that. Morality considerations should be a foundation. I do not mean morality as the Bible writes it but, rather as our current life style and set of laws dictates morality which is not limit to sexual morality. Instead, I mean morality as our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution define it.