Choice

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of Choice and how it pertains to our lives.  To me, it seems to be one of the most underutilized coping mechanisms people have.  Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are constantly making choices all day every day.

Privilege of course does play a part in some choices.  Certainly, those of us who are born into privilege have more options to choose from in regard to what we realistically can attain in this life.  My decision to be an English teacher in South Korea is a life option that has no equivalent for my Korean counterparts over here – which is absolutely something I think every ESL teacher needs to be well aware of.  Nevertheless, there are indeed choices that everyone in this world can make.

Regardless of one’s place of origin, we can always choose how to react to any given situation.  Life is full of experiences.  Some are dull, others exciting.  Some are fantastic, others are shitty.  Whatever the experience, we always have the ability to choose how we perceive it.  We can get lost in the dull, shitty side of our experiences, or we can make a conscious effort to search for the silver lining.  It’s a bit strange at first, but if you make a conscious effort at it, it can become second nature.

A couple weeks ago while longboarding at the weekly skate night in Ulsan, I took a bit of a fall, busting open my chin and breaking a tooth in the process.  Strangely enough, the first thought that ran through my head after the fall was, Hmm, I’ve never been to the ER in Korea before. I wonder what it will be like!  Soon enough however, I was bumming about all the medical bills I was racking up.  So, I decided to treat the whole thing as a cultural experience.  I began to actually get a little excited on my trips to the dentist because it was a chance to practice Korean.  On each trip, I tried to make mental notes of the differences between American and Korean dentists and doctors.  And you know what, soon enough I wasn’t thinking much of the medical bills anymore.  Obviously, I would still prefer not to have fallen that night, but at least I got something out of the experience besides spending a bunch of money.

To say it succinctly,

Shit happens in life.  Everyone is aware of that.  It’s how you react to the shit happening that really matters.

읽어 주셔서 감사합니다!