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Did you know you always have
choices?
Regardless of what is going on around you,
you are free if
you know you can choose. |
Picture yourself in a dark,
dank prison. A guard is holding a gun to your head and threatening to pull the
trigger if you don't tell him where your friends are. Are you terrified? Do you
feel like a helpless victim? You are not a helpless victim if you stay centered
and make choices.
What choices do you have in this difficult
situation?
You can silently pray for wisdom and courage. You certainly
have the choice of telling the guard where your friends are, hoping he will
spare your life, but how likely is it this desperate man will spare your life
once he has the information he wants? Even if he does, will you be able to live
with yourself for the rest of your days, knowing that you betrayed your friends
and perhaps contributed to their deaths?
You can try to engage him in
conversation and develop some kind of personal rapport. You can ask him
questions. What is it he needs? Does he need food or water or shelter? Does his
family need these things? Is there something you can do for him, short of
betraying your friends? Does this sound like "Resist not evil, but turn the
other cheek"? Yes, it does, and you can't imagine how effective it is until
you've used it.
You can remain silent and passively resistant, putting
the burden on him for the next decision. Will he pull the trigger and destroy
his only source of information? Probably not.
If you are physically
strong, you may be able to trip him, punch him, grab the gun, scratch his eyes
out, and physically release yourself. Only you can evaluate your likelihood of
success if you make this choice.
Do you have any doubt that your body
will some day physically become totally non-functional; that some day your body
will die?
If you accept the fact that your body is going to die, what
values are you willing to die for? The very values you're willing to die for
are the same values you must live for, every moment of every day. If you make
choices to live for those values, when your body does die, however that
happens, you will be spiritually free.
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Creativity...
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