The Decisions You Make, And The Choices You Have

A lot of people are too quick to judge others by the decisions that they have made, but they fail to consider the choices that they had to choose from. You will be surprised how difficult it is to make some certain decisions. In fact, a time may even come when life will give you two terrible choices to choose from, and no matter which one you take, you will still be judged for it. For every choice you make, there will definitely be complementary effects and consequences to it. But much more than that, there may be some pressures and other circumstances that may have prompted you to take such decisions which no one would see. This is why, before you judge people by their decisions, try to find out what kind of choices that they had to choose from.

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One of the stories I once read in the Holy Book explains this. There was a man who was sick and needed help. However, where the helper was at was very crowded, so they could not take the sick man inside for help. In fact, the place was so crowded that, even to get close to the entrance was practically difficult, and the sick man was on the stretcher - being carried by his friends. As they saw that they could not enter the place, and that was the only chance he had to be cured, they had to take desperate measures. What they did was to uncover the roof of the room where the helper was, and brought down the sick man right in front of him.

By mere looking at the action, you will misjudge them for spoiling the roof and taking some uncultured actions. However, when you look at the choices they had - either to do that, or to take the sick friend home and watch him die - they had to take the difficult decision in their desperation. Well, the sick man got the help that he needed and became well. There are things that people do, not because they are convenient or conventional, but because they had no other better choices. When you are in the middle of "a bigger evil and the deep blue sea," you will understand what it means to take difficult decision and making the choice of the lesser evil.

What people do not normally see when you act is the reason why you acted the way you did. You have to understand the burden that comes with difficult choices. For example; a single mother that has to work long hours to fend for her kids, a student who defers his admission to help raise financial support for his family, a young entrepreneur who meets a loan shark for a loan, etc. What people will see and judge them for is their final results: they will judge the single mother for leaving her kids to work for long hours, they will judge the student for dropping out of school, and they will judge the entrepreneur for taking a risky loan. However, they did not know the kind of choices that they had to pick from and the difficulty it was to make such decisions.

I have come to realise that, more often than not, the people who are quick to judge people by their decisions are those who have never been in or experienced the situation that they did. If you have not walked a mile in someone's shoes, then you may not understand their pains. A lot of people are passing through what you may never be able to endure if you are in their position. As a matter of fact, what people endure may break you, so do not be quick to judge them based on the result, but try to look at the process, the intention, and the choices they had.

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When someone becomes successful, people would simply assume that they made the right decision, but they will also conclude that the person who has not yet succeeded made the wrong decisions. The truth is that a couple of other factors may have played out, and it may have influenced the choices and decisions. The person that is yet to succeed may even be putting in more work than the person who has succeeded, so look beyond what your senses are telling you. You have to deal with people with empathy and show them more humanity. It might just be the little act of humanity that you show them that may give them the hopes to go through the challenges of life.

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