“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Fans of the Harry Potter saga will know Dumbledore’s advice.
The quote has been close to my heart ever since I first read it. Not only for Harry in the wizard world, it holds a deeper meaning to ordinary human lives as well.
We are made to believe that we have only a few major life choices to make in the course of our lifetime. But if I sit back and reflect, I realise one makes innumerable choices every waking moment. We may not realise the magnitude or the consequences of our choices — but they drive how the world functions.
In our hands
When we choose not to hire a woman though she is qualified because of the inherent biases that reside inside us, we widen the gender gap in society. When we choose to forward that bigoted religious message to our WhatsApp groups, we empower divisive forces and we plant a little more hatred in the world. When we choose to behave unkindly to those who we think are of lesser social stature than us, we make the world a little more inhumane.
When we choose to lie to our loved ones, we put out a little more doubt into an already confused world. The sum total of all the choices we make as an individual, becomes the driving force of our society and the base of our cultures in the years to come.
The number of choices available to us differs depending on a variety of factors — socio-economic conditions, educational background, exposure, place of origin and so on. We should be aware that more the number of choices we can make, the more entitled we are and hence hold a higher responsibility towards making the right one. Whatever may be our available choices, being aware that every single decision of ours has an impact on the functioning of the world would make us all choose wiser.
If we begin to realise the magnitude of the decision we have in our hands, we would also teach our children to make better choices. Our education system nor our social set-up has prepared us to face the plethora of choices that our life throws at us once we embrace adulthood.
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