hopefully something rhetorical

After reading one of the latest posts on Christine Kane’s blog where she is talking about one of Steven Covey’s habits, I was really interested to think more about the ideas of expectations that people have for the others they encounter. Christine is responding to Covey about the idea that there is a right path for us each to choose, and if you don’t follow your right path, then you won’t live your life to the full potential that you can. Christine disagrees with this philosophy, and in a very buddist way, explains that there are always choices that can be made. And, people should do the best that they can with the choices that they make. The main idea is that if we spend so much time lamenting our choices, then how can we ever move forward and away from potentially bad decisions that we might have made towards something better, but more importantly towards something forward instead of back.

I remember lamenting to my mother not so long ago about not liking the feeling of not knowing what the right answer to a problem was. She told me that I was past the age where right answers we always apparent to us, and now I just had choices that I could make. And, what I wonder about that interchange now, after reading Christine’s post, is how can we know when that shift happens. Wouldn’t it be better to teach our kids that there are always choices. There are never truly right and wrong answers to any question (well, maybe some do– “Should I kill my brother today?”). And, I believe with this whole choice idea that some choices are more inherently “right” than others, see above question. But, what if we started to teach kids at a young age that there are choices that we make, but there isn’t such thing as one right answer. This is the approach that I have started taking with my students in my classes regarding changes I am suggesting to their writing, and although these aren’t little kids, maybe that is just as important for them to learn this lesson while they are making choices that affect the rest of their lives.

Think about it. All through college people asked me what I was majoring in, and when I told them English, I got the look. You know what look I am talking about. The look that says you are wasting your time, you will never find a job. But, I did find a job, and I went on to go back to school and do more studying, and now, I want to go back more than ever to keep learning. Maybe those people that gave me the look just didn’t understand the goal that I had for myself (and, that goal doesn’t include making tons of money and it does include being happy with what I am doing), but before passing judgement, they could have asked me more about what I was hoping to do with my degree. I think that parents all too often suggest to their children that they hold the knowledge kids will someday have. The blinker that goes off in your brain to tell you the right answer, and it seems this way because we are constantly shown by our parents what choices we should or should have made. We all have that ability to make good decisions, but how often are kids taught how. So, instead of, “you will not smoke because it is bad for you,” why not talk to kids about why we don’t want them to smoke. Ask them to consider the consequences, and then, let them make their own choice. Teach them at younger ages that there are choices that they have the ability to make, and parents don’t always know the right answer. Maybe then, future kids won’t have to reach a point in their lives where they figure out that there is not one right answer — just different paths, and maybe it would eliminate the anger that lots of us feel when we realize that our parents don’t have all the answers.