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Hmm. I actually still find I'm subjectively freer when I can peacefully face the reality in front of me, even when it's not something I would want. My mom is a good example to me. The first time she got diagnosed with cancer (12 years ago), she had option option option. There was everything to try, but it was all fraught with the pressure of making the wrong choice, or messing something up, or not knowing. This time, after she'd been cancer-free for 12 years and got diagnosed with a whole different cancer, it's been so different. She'll either beat it or she won't. Anything that's tried will either work or it won't. It will suck either a little or a lot, until it doesn't anymore, for one reason or another. She's subjectively freer now because she's not trying to get out of the "bad" options. They're just coming and she's just going through them. She seems a lot more empowered this go-round. You know that part of the Serenity Prayer, about "the wisdom to know the difference"? I feel more empowered when I don't try to judge that with a razor's margin. When I stop thinking, "Maybe, if I just try hard enough or in exactly the right way, this could be 'something I can change,'" and recognize how small my impact actually is on anything but my own life and the lives of the people very closest to me, the more empowered I feel. |