In any situation we always have a choice.
Always.
We might have a choice on the action we can take, the meaning we give, or our emotional response…
We might kid ourselves that we have no choice, but we know that’s a lie.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms —to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”
Dr Viktor Frankyl
Viktor Frankyl, an Austrian Jewish psychiatrist, learnt this in the Nazi concentration camps.
It’s worth remembering this so that we make our choice consciously.
Mindfulness meditation, when done regularly over a long period of time, helps to create space between stimulus and response.
We wouldn’t give away parts of our properties. We wouldn’t give away our money without a positive reason.