Choice Is Confusion Between Beliefs
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“I am free and that is why I am lost.” —Franz Kafka
“Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” —Janis Joplin
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- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
Choice Definition
- Choice is the state of confusion that occurs when there is no dominant belief in control at the moment.
Choice Resolved
- The confusion of choice is resolved when one belief takes charge.
- Indecision occurs when a majority position of control cannot be reached by any one belief or a coalition of beliefs.
- There is no sense of choice, options, or confusion when you have a controlling belief(s) in place to cover a situation or event.
Choice Is Imbalance (Lack of Homeostasis)
- Choice is a state of imbalance caused by the lack of a dominant belief.
- Balance is achieved when there is a clear “yes” and “no”.
- This makes choice a delusion.
- Choice being only a conflict of beliefs.
Find Real Choice: Choose to Choose
- First, realize that you and your choices are controlled by your beliefs.
- Second, realize that your beliefs come to you mostly in accidental ways, because they are mainly inherited or adopted from your family, peers, schooling, exposure to media, or other conditioning factors.
- Third, realize you choose to choose only by recognizing, removing, and replacing your controlling beliefs with new ones.
Examine Beliefs
- This involves examining: the underlying premises of your beliefs, the conditioning that went into establishing your beliefs, the instrumental functions of your beliefs (payoffs), the biological drives that your beliefs support or excuse, the practicality of your beliefs, the factualness of your beliefs, the logic of your beliefs, the validity of your beliefs, the reliability of your beliefs, and, most of all, the ego rewards of your beliefs.
Choose Beliefs
- At the end of this examination, you then choose which beliefs to keep and which to discard.
- This is your only real choosing and even it is based on and controlled by your beliefs in what constitute right and/or reasonable beliefs.
Chosen Beliefs
- And once you choose a belief then that belief (along with the others it is aligned with) determines your so-called future choices.
- Finally, you need to ask what beliefs you used to choose your beliefs—and to go through this same process of examining and testing with those beliefs.
- And then start at the beginning again.
Few Beliefs
- Eventually, you will discover that it is best to have few beliefs because they are controlling you and you are not controlling them.
- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
FREEDOM
- The only way to be free is to have no beliefs.
No Beliefs
- The only way to have no beliefs is to be dead.
A Few Tested Beliefs
- Therefore, it is best to have a few core beliefs to guide your life, to be aware of your core beliefs, to examine and test your core beliefs, and to choose your core beliefs again and again.
Pretending to Have Choice
- Else, you are merely reacting though you may vehemently claim to have choice, to think independently, or argue for free will.
- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
Choice As a Work Issue
- If you listen to your own inner dialogue, have you ever noticed that choice is more often than not simply an issue of whether to work or not to work?
There really are only two choices:
(1) do some difficult task;
(2) take the easy way out.
Easy Way Out
- It is not surprising then that you have many strategies to take the easy way out such as:
(1) refuse to choose
(2) paralysis by analysis
(3) wait for the perfect time
(4) wait for a sign or direction from outside
(5) wait until you are sure or have all the information
(6) procrastinate
Avoid Work
- Therefore, your imagined inability to decide, need for more time, need for more information, need for security, fear of risk, insecurity, problem with procrastination, etc., are just excuses to avoid work.
Lazy
- Since you do not want to admit to yourself the plain truth: you are lazy.
- You make all kinds of excuses.
- Instead, face the fact of human weakness and work against it.
- Avoidance of decision making is taking the easy way out, is laziness.
More Help
- For more on choice and work, see Procrastination with 3 Solutions.
- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
Quotations from Various Sources on Choice
Listed Alphabetically
“He who has a choice has trouble.” —Dutch proverb
“If we could learn how to balance rest against effort, calmness against strain, quiet against turmoil, we would assure ourselves of joy in living and psychological health for life.” —Josephine Rathbone
“Nothing is more certain than uncertainties: / Fortune is full of fresh variety; / Constant in nothing but inconstancy.” —Richard Barnfield
“So choice must exist only when the mind is confused. When it is clear there is no choice.” —J. Krishnamurti, Can Humanity Change? p. 61
“So will is desire.” —J. Krishnamurti, Can Humanity Change? p. 61
“There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purpose of human life.” —John Stuart Mill
“To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything, or nothing, about it.” —Olin Miller
“We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.” —Eric Hoffer
“What men really want is not knowledge but certainty.” —Bertrand Russell
Quotations from Kevin on Choice
Listed Alphabetically
“Choice is the lack of attitude.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choice is a conflict in attitudes.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choice exists when attitude is uncertain.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choice is resolved by a dominant attitude.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choice does not exist when attitude is certain.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choices are beliefs.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choices are answers.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choices are opinions.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choices are the winning attitude.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choices are the stronger opinion.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“People don’t buy on emotion. People don’t buy on thinking. People buy on attitude.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Attitude is a synergy of thought and emotion that drives choices.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choice means an uncertain attitude.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choice is having weak attitudes.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choice exists where there is no dominant attitude.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“There is no free will as all wills have preconditions.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Will exists in order to satisfy the conditions that imprison it.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“The best one can do is to rule their conditioning.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choice is the active pursuit of one’s conditioning.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“You only get to choose for your conditioning in order to create new conditioning.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Choice is indistinguishable from its internal circumstances.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
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- Read and discover the best diagrams and maps of how people play games with your mind and heart.
- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
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- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
- Read and discover the world’s best breathing exercise for centering and peace of mind.
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- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
- Read and discover the world’s best breathing exercise for centering and peace of mind.
