Dear Editor,
‘The power of choice’, here the word ‘Power’ is very significant because the choices we make, from the small ones to the most important ones, they all have a very strong and powerful impact on our lives. Sometimes we make choices sincerely, putting a lot of thinking and care in it and sometimes we do it in a jiffy or on impulse. But it is not necessary that the carefully made choices always turn out to be beneficial or the ones made without much thought give bad results. Sometimes it is just like a gamble with a lot of risk involved. But that doesn’t mean we should be afraid of making choices. Whenever we make a wrong choice we learn from it and that way we gain experience. So whenever we make a choice there are mainly two possibilities, the choice we made was right or it was wrong. Sometimes there could be a third possibility to it too and that is, whatever choice we made had a negligible or a minimal effect on us or anyone else involved.Both right and wrong choices have their positive as well as negative effects. Making right choices makes us more confident and help in obtaining more opportunities, but on the negative side one can become proud and arrogant, which obviously causes hindrance in one’s growth and improvement. Making wrong choices, on the other hand, teaches us, makes us work more hard and builds our resilience and on the negative side it could be discouraging, demoralising and one could lose belief in self. Making right or wrong choices is directly connected to our successes or failures. If the choice is right we succeed (in most of the cases) and if we make a wrong choice we fail. So we can also say that both success and failure are crucial in shaping a person’s life. If you have never known failure, you can never know success. In other words, failure makes us appreciate the success and it is failure only that makes success sweeter for us. Many remarkable people that are known to the world as great leaders, innovators, creators, they all have seen a lot of failure, which they overcame with their perseverance and dedication. It was the failure that made them more motivated and hardworking to achieve their goals. Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb and when someone asked him, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” he replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps”.
Now what is essential to know here is what makes a choice right or wrong? In my view, if you make a certain choice and you feel good after that then it is a right choice. On the other hand, if you feel bad after making a certain choice then it is probably a wrong choice. But both right and wrong choices or success and failure are the two sides of the same coin. That means both are indispensable for an individual’s development and progress. Winston Churchill once said, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”. So it does not matter if you make a wrong choice or a right one, what’s important is that you keep on trying, never give up on hope and never lose faith in yourself.
Sonia Mannotra
Jammu
