Choosing Not to Choose

It was a spot near the cliffside where a loose boulder was lying. The two of them laid him down on the ground, propped him against the boulder, and settled his head upon it. But in spite of the pains they took and all the willingness he showed, his posture remained contorted and unnatural-looking. So one of them opened his frock coat and out of a sheath that hung from a belt girt round his waistcoat drew a long, thin, double-edged butcher’s knife, held it up, and tested the cutting edges in the moonlight. Once more the odious courtesies began, the first handed the knife across him to the second, who handed it across him back again to the first. He now perceived clearly that he was supposed to seize the knife himself, as it traveled from hand to hand above him, and plunge it into his own breast. But he did not do so, he merely turned his head, which was still free to move, and gazed around him. He could not completely rise to the occasion, he could not relieve the officials of all their tasks; the responsibility for this last failure of his lay with him who had not left him the remnant of strength necessary for the deed.
-from the final pages of The Trial

One of the most important things I’ve learned thus far in life is deceivingly simple: not making a decision is in fact making a decision. Some decisions are trivial in nature while others are a matter of life and death. But regardless of the severity and unseen ramifications of choosing, it seems rather clear that choosing not to make a choice holds just as much potential impact as any choice one can make.

While negating the action of positive choice offers a false sense of mitigation to an individual, the consequences of remaining paralyzed to choice build in unseen ways, waiting to fall.

It’s from beneath the rubble that I write these words. I ruined things with Corrie, and while I feel in some ways I did my best to not hurt her, I didn’t make a choice. And my inability, my refusal I should say, to not make a choice was in reality the worst choice I could have possibly made.

The knife was being passed back and forth above me, waiting to be seized and a choice to be made. But not grabbing it was a choice, and it ultimately was plunged into us all.