The choices given

I've always believe when we wake up each morning we have two choices, we can get better or we can get worse. There is nothing in between. Some days it's a combination of the two, but it's where the balance was at the end of the day that determines which won the day. I believe this applies to everything we do, you can always boil the choices to their essence to find it's about better or worse.

And the constant accumulation of the worse days in the free-fall of emotions and feelings that causes the worst periods of depression. Sometimes it a matter of letting myself free fall until I hit bottom to know where and what I'm mentally standing when I can decide to look at the choices. The worse was both an unconscious and a conscious decision and act, and where the two separate I don't know. Only they have one answer together.

This, however, doesn't cover another set of choices we have and face every day. Whether or not to like something, meaning ourselves. I don't know of too many people who don't have something they don't like about themselves, whether they express it or not, it's there, always there, in the back of their mind, sitting for the moment to find our consciousness in a momentary lapse and make us look at ourselves and discover what we hate.

For some it's never left the consciousness, either from unconscious choice to keep it there, from the constant reminders in our clothes, in the mirror or from other people, especially friends or family who remind us about it, sometimes disguised as love or help, which it never is, but it's hard for them to see that because they don't know how much it hurts. And hurt it does, keeping the mental scars open to our heart and mind, alive in our life every day. There and never going away.

But then we can choose to get or do better there too, at least until we run up against our genetics, that pesky wall of our physical being and physiology which limits, and usually stops, the better in its track. And breaking through that barrier is another choice we face, how much better is better, and where and when does not hate about ourselves become something else?

It's the old adage about the journey, meaning as long as we're striving, it's better. We're going in the right direction, or so we like or want to think, the choice of better over worse. But then why does it often not feel better, but simply more of the same, only harder?

I've never figured that out, why it doesn't feel better, except the occasional moment either when I physically feel better or I realize the distance in time from then to now to see it's different, and while maybe not better, just farther away from then and there. And that, sometimes, translates as better, but it's a relative better. But then better is a relative word which can mean simply not worse or less worse.

It depends on your view when you make the judgement. Others may see it differently than you. You know the then and there and the here and now, and what happened in between. You know the time when it got worse and you know the struggle to get away from the worse. And you know the fear of everything getting worse again. That's the reality, not the better, but the fear of the better not working and being another worse.

That's why sometimes the choice isn't. It's just one, live and hope for the better, or at least not the worse. As Father Mulcahy said, "When you're going through hell, sometimes the best thing is to just keep going." And it still seems the best choice of all.