What is choice?

Someone was writing about what she "had to" do.

My response (saved by Schuyler Waynforth; thanks!):

You are inviting powerlessness into your life and keeping it there by using that phrase.

You wrote -=-how freeing it was to realize we didn't have to KEEP UP-=-

How much more freeing to think "we can choose not to keep up." It might seem to you the same thing, or the other side of the same coin. But coins' sides are NOT the same.

Choice is not the other side of a "have to" coin. It is the antidote to a have-to poison. Choice dissolves the roof and ceiling of a have-to cell.

SandraDodd.com/haveto
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Happy choices

I did my time in and around school, and learned things painstakingly and grudgingly that my children later learned while laughing and playing and singing. I have guarded my children's freedom and given them happy choices that I didn't have.


SandraDodd.com/schoolinmyhead
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Marty in the 20th century
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A time and a place

[Riding in a car] is a great time and place for humor, news, and deep conversation.

SandraDodd.com/truck
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Roses and different directions

People need to start and go, but they don't have to race at breakneck speed or never look back. "Going" sometimes just means going one step and smelling the roses! Sometimes the most important steps are those where you're still standing in the very same place, but looking a different direction!

Sandra Dodd, July 2003 discussion
photo by Sandra Dodd

More and better

The question "What do I have to do?" is a world apart from "What can I do?" "What am I allowed to do?"
. . . .
My kids have been really good employees wherever they worked because they were not trained to just do what they had to do and to just do as little as they had to do.

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Small bit transcribed from talk I gave in August, 2010
called Unschooling: How to Screw it Up
(you can listen to it at that link)

photo by Sandra Dodd, which is related only by theme

Embracing and supporting

Colleen Prieto wrote:

"For me I think the biggest applications of unschooling in terms of my marriage are the ideas of embracing and supporting other people's passions and interests—not just my child's, but my husband's too. And accepting people for who they are, not trying or wanting to change them or 'fix' them. Valuing everyone in our family for who they are and working together to meet everyone's needs. Unschooling is good for marriages."

—Colleen Prieto

SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Joyce Fetteroll, of Marta's family
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Picture it clearly

One easy way to decide how to be is to picture clearly what would make things worse, and then not do that.

JoyfullyRejoycing.com/joyfulnutshells.html
photo by Sandra Dodd
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