A belief system I strongly held on to for a few years was that we always have a choice. Absolutes most usually fail. Some life experiences later, it seemed to me that determinism made more sense. In an everyday life scenario, this meant that many a time circumstances are such that we don’t really have a choice.
On a Wednesday morning, S, my Uber driver for the day’s commute called me. In very good English, he said that while Uber was showing 8 mins on my phone, in reality, he was 20 minutes away, but would try to reach as fast as possible. I wasn’t happy but finding another cab at 1X, I realised, would be a difficult proposition. S arrived about 20 mins later, and we started the trip. At 50 metres, he said that his mobile had switched off and I’d have to rebook. It irritated me because I had lost a lot of time already and would lose more in the process of making another booking and waiting for the cab to arrive. His other phone meanwhile, was repeatedly ringing, despite him cutting the call. He finally took the call and spoke in Malayalam, saying he’d call back later. As his phone was being switched on, he asked me to wait a minute so that he’d be able to take my booking. I did that, and after he gave me a go ahead, requested a cab. Turned out to be another driver, a few minutes away. This imminent waste of time irritated me further. S offered to drop me off where the other cab was. I declined, got out of the car and as I shut the door, said to him in Malayalam that if he didn’t know how to do this job, he probably shouldn’t attempt it.
The typical working class Malayali has quite the ego. He moves out of his homeland and does every kind of labour outside, partly because of the money, and partly because his fellow Mallus won’t be able to see him undergo the ‘indignity’ of the labour. Given this context, I can imagine what a comment in Malayalam would do to his psyche.
Five minutes later, my anger and irritation was replaced by remorse. There is a pattern to this. Until sometime ago, I’d imagine myself at the receiving end. These days I am immune to that, so my dear mind(!) pictures people I care about, in that situation! I sent an SMS apology to S. Never got a response – maybe he didn’t get it, maybe he thought I was slightly off my rocker, or maybe it just made him angry.
To me this was another example of determinism, or at least my version of it. Given all the potential consequences, S didn’t really have a choice on how he could respond to my comment. On the other hand, I did have a choice – I could have not made the comment. Bitten back my first instinct. Those ‘life experiences’, they have taught me that we are constantly in situations in which one person is (relatively) more privileged than the other in terms of really having a a choice. That person is at the beginning of a chain, his/her choice determines the scenarios from then on. It is, in that sense, an action. But sometimes, we are further down the chain and all we have, are reactions. I have noticed that in the next scenario in that chain, when we are (relatively) the more privileged party, the instinct is to base our action on what was dealt out to us, (by people or circumstances) specially if it was unpleasant. But we can stop the downward spiral. We have a choice.
The word continues to be empathy. The more I choose it, the better. And no, the choice is not based on a belief in karma/cosmic justice. I no longer do. The choice is based on a selfish need, a need to be a more conscious human. I’ve noticed it is a significantly happier experience for me.
I wonder, should it be “Happiness is in a conscious choice…”?
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