Dawn Falbe

Hi All:

My pet peeve as well.... When people tell me they don't have any choice
I usually ask them if they are in the Military. When they answer "No"
then I say "well then everything you do or say or even your way of
living and being is a choice".... I usually get a "yeah but..." And
even going into the Military is a choice, it's just once you are in it,
you have to wait a while if you want to get out without going to jail.
Still that would be a choice to go AWOL!!!

Namaste

Dawn F
Tucson, AZ


Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 13:40:42 EDT
From: SandraDodd@...
Subject: choices and freedom


In a message dated 6/23/04 5:44:03 AM, superdiva@... writes:

<< Lately, I've been craving a nice big meal of pure unschooling -- so

I'm back. >>

Well let's stir it up some then!

I'm just back from Las Vegas, Nevada, where I spoke at a conference (and

Holly helped the first day) and said one thing new, that I had saved to
say. I
said intro, middle and end, "You don't have to do things my way, but the
fact
that my way works means you don't *have* to do things your way."


I think I might have hit my life's limit of people saying "Well, some
things
we HAVE to do," or "We had no choice about..."

EEEEk!

A couple of people lately (one in person at the conference) I've said
"You DO
have a choice" and gone on in some detail. The mom I was talking to was

unhappy about things with her three youngish adopted kids, VERY close in
age, and
she was feelng trapped and stuck. I asked her if she had her car in the

parking lot. Yes. Charge card? Yes.

So I told her she didn't have to go home. She could go to the airport
and
fly to Japan. (Forgot to ask if she had a passport, but it could've
been
Honolulu, then, or Fairbanks, or the other end of Canada.) I said she
could be
having plastic surgery by Tuesday and never come home.

Extreme?

Sheesh. If people have THAT much choice, surely they can choose to have

dinner later, or to move the TV to another room. "We had no choice" is
just
starting to get to me.

People choose not to kill themselves. That's usually a good choice.
But
choosing to stay with children means having the responsibility for that
choice.
We chose to babysit a batch of kids today, so four extras. It will make
our
whole day more exciting. I could have chosen the less exciting, less
helpful.
I could choose to put them all in the van and drive them to their mom
and
say "Changed my mind." At any moment, there are choices, and
responsibilities,
and options.

Sandra


________________________________________________________________________

[email protected]

In a message dated 6/24/2004 3:58:05 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
dawnfalbe@... writes:
When they answer "No"
then I say "well then everything you do or say or even your way of
living and being is a choice".... I usually get a "yeah but..."
------------------

Partly it's the choice of words, I know.

"No choice" with no conditions might be worth challenging.

But really what the question is is "No choice if what?" or "No choice within
what context?"

"I feel compelled to..."
or
"To maintain my integrity I have to..."
or
"To keep my children as happy as I like to, I have to..." do whatever.

There have been some heated conversations about this in the past, and some of
it I saved http://sandradodd.com/unschool/haveto


Sandra


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