You still do have the choice. Work in the office and get ill, or do something else. Lots of people do indeed make the choice to stay in jobs which make them ill or even suicidal, because it seems to them that the alternatives are worse. What you are actually saying is "I have no other alternatives which are acceptable to me", which is a subjective judgement and is itself a choice. Yes, it means being self-aware and taking responsibility for your own actions. It doesn't by itself confer or require any more wisdom about your needs and long term happiness, though, because there is still the choice to be ignorant and not to plan ahead (the Dice Man, who lived his life by delegating all choices to random events from dice throws, still made the choice to live that way and chose each time to actually do what the dice said).
True, "you always have a choice" is not absolutely true (all generalisations are false!). If you are already too deranged to consider alternatives, or on a physical level (like someone hitting your knee and causing the leg to jerk), then you can claim that there was no choice. And it still allows for mistakes, I can still say "I didn't mean to hit the delete key" because my finger slipped. But in almost all normal cases when a person says "I didn't have a choice" what they really mean is "I don't want to accept responsibility for my action". Sometimes they will even say it while also telling about the choices available ("I had no choice, I had to hit him or I'd have looked like a coward").
Note that nothing says that you will necessarily make a wise or informed choice out of the alternatives. People will pick what they think at the time is the 'best' (or 'least bad') choice, but that evaluation may well not be rational (to others or in hindsight), and what looks like a good choice in the short term may have bad effects in the long term. You can choose actions but not always the consequences of those actions.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2007-10-10 01:20 pm (UTC)True, "you always have a choice" is not absolutely true (all generalisations are false!). If you are already too deranged to consider alternatives, or on a physical level (like someone hitting your knee and causing the leg to jerk), then you can claim that there was no choice. And it still allows for mistakes, I can still say "I didn't mean to hit the delete key" because my finger slipped. But in almost all normal cases when a person says "I didn't have a choice" what they really mean is "I don't want to accept responsibility for my action". Sometimes they will even say it while also telling about the choices available ("I had no choice, I had to hit him or I'd have looked like a coward").
Note that nothing says that you will necessarily make a wise or informed choice out of the alternatives. People will pick what they think at the time is the 'best' (or 'least bad') choice, but that evaluation may well not be rational (to others or in hindsight), and what looks like a good choice in the short term may have bad effects in the long term. You can choose actions but not always the consequences of those actions.