Free Will and Spontaneity – Anything that comes to your mind is a decision

Free Will and Spontaneity – Anything that comes to your mind is a decision

As a sequel to last two posts on Free Will, I am trying to go a little deeper this time. We have conversed about decisions that we take in our daily lives. We have seen the philosophical viewpoints around free will. There will be more, I am sure. Feel free to drop your views in the comment box.

When you make a decision or choose something, you base it on some reasons. That’s what we usually do. Well there are exceptions – for me, you and everyone else. It’s not that you use your professional knowledge all the time to start a grand project. The big idea that you had for you business sprouted somewhere in your head, all of a sudden. Your academic knowledge and previous experiences are not always leading you to success in competitive exams. Your may not use your lifelong experiences of good-bad-ugly relationships when you are fostering mutual bonds for yet another one. You accept the situations as fresh and start working on them. Most people listen to their inner voice and set on to something that is completely absurd in logician’s dictionary. When you are listening to the gentle whisper in your ears, feeling a tingling in your head or responding to a sign that is unusually coincidental to something else going on in your life – you are spontaneous.

Free will is about making choices. All actions stem from the mind. Something occurs to you. Then you think a little bit more. Finally you act on these thoughts. You can tag the physical actions as a choice but I beg to differ on that. Choices have been already made – at the level of thought.

You can, for example, begin to think about night life and pubs and discos in your city. After a while you talk to your girlfriend and learn that she is out with her friends. You go on thinking and doubt if your girlfriend is making out with someone! Then you think you have to make a decision if you should go and smear her at face or catch her red handed. Decisions had been made already. You chose to think in a specific way. You chose to be doubtful. You chose to think that your girl friend is cheating on you if she is out with someone that night. You have chosen so many wrong decisions that right choices are nowhere close when you are frowning in anger.

Now you are reading this article and you wonder how to be spontaneous! It’s hard to differentiate between the biased and unbiased thoughts in your mind. There is too much clutter already. Start throwing out the garbage! Speak up what your mind says. Do not worry about the consequences for a few times in life. That will only make you stronger. Don’t be hesitant to talk to your friends if you feel if something is going wrong. Make it a point to express whatever you feel at the moment. Slowly and steadily, you will begin to have a sense of control. Best way to be able to choose one’s thoughts is to follow everything that occurs to you. If you feel like getting out of office, do it right now. If you want to tell a girl of how much you love her, do it now. Just do it!!

The web of intermingled thoughts and ideas will begin to straighten out with each decision that you take to follow your instantaneous will. Do not stop yourself from taking decisions that you want. Be nice with your spontaneous ‘will’ and nature will reveal great secrets of ‘power to choose.’