Picking and Choosing

An ever-present barrier to our spiritual happiness lies in our making choices daily that cause suffering (for ourselves and others).  We are mostly unaware of this activity, and when we become aware of it, we often try to justify or defend it.  It’s called “picking and choosing.”

Picking and choosing occurs when we decide that we want certain circumstances, events or people in our lives, but we don’t want others.  It raises its discriminating head when we want to hold on to some aspect of our lives, and when we reject others.  It isn’t necessarily bad or wrong:  it’s what we do as human beings.  But it does cause our unhappiness, as we strive to have life exactly as we want it.

If you have difficulty imagining this type of thinking or behavior, let me give you some personal examples.  I work very hard to maintain my image of being smart, competent, efficient, insightful, warm…you get the picture.  And I never want to be seen as selfish, incompetent, stupid, careless…my efforts to maintain my image is picking and choosing; I want to be seen as one way, and not as another, as I struggle to be authentic at the same time!

Another example of picking and choosing might be my liking projects I can complete quickly and disliking projects that go on (what seems like) forever.  I like certain people who act certain ways and treat me in a particular manner, and I reject people who don’t.  These are examples of picking and choosing.  Before you label them as good, bad, right, wrong, normal, harmless, let me talk more about picking and choosing…

Sometimes we are called to pick and choose.  We may have to fire a person for incompetence, or decide to end a friendship because we are being hurt more than helped by the relationship.  We’ll choose to wear a warm coat on a winter’s day, or eat certain foods that are good for us and reject foods that aren’t.

At other times, we don’t have the option to pick and choose:  we can’t choose our parents and siblings; we can’t choose to be tall if we are short, or to be a great singer if we have lost our voices.  We have no power to force others to like us (if they don’t), or to have a real winter with snow near the ocean in California, or have warm weather in the winters of Minnesota.

So what should we make of picking and choosing?  First we can simply notice that we are doing it, and how it affects us and others.  You will probably be surprised to learn how often you pick and choose.  Just notice the anxiety, distress, restlessness it causes.  Don’t condemn yourself for doing it; don’t try to force yourself to change.

Then notice when picking and choosing is helpful.  What can you do to lead a deeper spiritual life?  What barriers can you remove in order to go in that direction?  I gave a talk on this subject recently, and pointed out how we can use picking and choosing as a way to avoid spiritual practice.  For example, if you have daily prayer or meditation time, how often do you say to yourself that you really don’t have enough time; that if you can only pray or meditate 15 minutes that you might as well not do it at all; that you just need to finish this last page on the computer, even though it breaks into your meditation time; that you’re too tired; that you have an assignment to finish; that the kids are too noisy tonight… all these are choices we make to avoid our commitment to spirit, to others, and to ourselves.  As you pursue this type of thinking, just notice what you’re doing, not with condemnation, but with generosity and amusement—yup, just choosing one more avoidance, because making spiritual practice time can be difficult.  If you do condemn yourself, try not to get caught up in condemning your condemning—just notice all of it.  Over time, you begin to understand how your mind works, how you distance yourself from spirit and devotional time, and over time, you begin to notice that giving attention to picking and choosing lessens its frequency and intensity.

The more we become friends with picking and choosing, the more we notice what we are doing, and we have more choices about if and when we want to pick and choose.  We begin to notice how we separate ourselves from others—our families, friends, co-workers, because we like some things about them and not others.  We separate ourselves from our work, because it doesn’t challenge us, because it is too time consuming, because it’s too difficult.  But as we notice our picking and choosing, we can choose to embrace this very human characteristic:  we can notice where we get stuck, where we hurt ourselves and others, and we can make other choices.  We can decide to accept our lives, just as they are, without clinging so tightly to the things we want, or rejecting those things we don’t want. We can be generous with ourselves and appreciate that this is just one more characteristic that connects us to the human race.  We can use it as an opportunity to observe how it can help connect us to the divine energy, and how it creates barriers.  And we can decide to make different, more loving, more connecting choices.

May your holidays be blessed with love, the sacred and its deepest meaning for you:

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Peace be with You.  

In addition to her spiritual practices, Susan R. Quinn of the Quinn Company has been an independent consultant and trainer since 1978.  She specializes in facilitation of problem solving for teams and groups in conflict.  She is certified to train using the DiSC Personal Profile System.  Her other best-received training programs are “Dealing with Difficult People,”  “Managing Conflict,” and “Learning to Live in the Eye of the Hurricane.”  She also offers values clarification workshops, and strategic planning services in partnership with her husband, Jerry.  You can reach Susan at the Quinn Company, 246 Via Presa, San Clemente, CA  92672, (949) 366-5890, or email susanquinn@earthlink.net.

To hear Susan discuss her book, The Deepest Spiritual Life, call BookTalk toll free at 888-355-0600, code #2677.