The Choice / Vanisha Uppal

The small choices in our life make us who we are today. Some are made subconsciously in childhood.

The most difficult family member and the adorable one both influence our lives in some way. We adopt some qualities of each one of them, which quality? Is an individual choice.  

As a child, I was fearful of my school teachers and grandparents. My granny was so controlling and manipulative that she could make the other feel guilty of her actions. Grandfather was a strict, disciplined yet balanced and fair person. My father was full of love, no-demands, calm, and self-content – a happy soul.

Papa was often taken for granted by everyone, even by the children, yet he was relaxed about it; whereas granny was popular among family, relatives, and friends. She used to get all the attention.

The choice I made subconsciously as a child was that “I will never manipulate”. I was straight forward, sometimes too sharp and brutal, which granny hated.

Everyone in the family used to please granny to keep her happy but I did the opposite; often got into argument and fight with her. I thought “If I am not doing anything wrong then why should I please her?”

As a result, she created resistance for me at every step. Deep inside I loved her and wanted her to love me back in the same way.  I became hard, rigid in my own way; the ego of being honest and truthful.

I felt it is not my cup of tea to control any relationships.  In frustration fighting on small things, I did not know how to handle the opposition due to my concept of perfection and reacted many times.

Later in life, this harder version of myself helped me to realize ‘enough’, this is due to my subtle restlessness and fear. I started meditating and felt the softness. Things started improving.

Another choice I made consciously changed my life.  My daughter Vrinda, was five years old. One evening at the swimming pool, after playing with her friend Molu, she came to me and asked, “Can we go to the coffee shop with Molu and her family to have snacks?”.

I was not on talking terms with her mother, we had fought lately.

I said, “Baby your friend did not ask me, neither her mother?”

Innocently Vrinda said to me, “But she asked me and I am asking you!”

For a few seconds everything stopped in me, I had two choices “Her happiness or my ego?”

I should make a gentle excuse to my daughter and divert her attention.

But I could not do so and, although it was painful, I said with some difficulty, “Ok baby I will go with you”

I became friends with her mother and family again. It might appear to be a trivial decision, but it reflected in my subsequent life. I experienced infinite love, crossing the human potential and its manifestation and the divine reciprocated.

It was difficult, full of conflicts, fluctuating, yet no part of life I regret. When I look back it was a beautiful and unbelievable journey. 

I feel there are no black and whites, the choice is between good and better, and who decides that? closing our eyes, inner peace will decide.