I Choose To Be….

Jean Paul Satre’s loaded- “Je suis mes choix” (translated, I’m my choices) has always intrigued me. Every so often I find myself meditating on Sartre’s wicked choice of words.

Last night I ended up having an uber deep discussion about it with The-Man-In-My-Head. In case I forgot to mention, The-Man-In-My-Head has led quite a ahem, colourful life. He likes to say that he’s played the game on his terms.

He supplies a lot of such one-liners. Over the years, I’ve developed a pretty solid statement-detector. Now I can easily make out when something has to be stored in memory and when something has to be rejected out rightly as pure bullshit!

Anyway, this isn’t about him. It’s about choices. Without going into the non-interesting parts of the conversation, let me just re-tell a very ahem, “interesting” part of HIS speech.

Brace yourself. Here goes-

“I believe a great many people are born writer or artist, and die without ever realizing it. Books go unwritten, paintings unpainted. The fortunate ones are those who discover what they were meant to do. I might have been an excellent soccer player; I might have been an excellent writer. If I’d tried to do both, I’d have been no more than mediocre. I chose not to be mediocre.”

Pretty loaded, right? But pretty nonetheless. Don’t know if you identify with it but last night, this was just what I needed to hear.

Everything is about choices: What you want to be? Who you are today? How are you feeling? Who you want to be with?

Rest all is mere technicality.