The choices we make

Voters in a queue to cast their votes at Logoba yesterday.

No matter what angle you choose to look at it from, life at the end of the day is a sum total of our choices. Then again, choices are nothing more than a collection of decisions because one cannot choose unless one has decided.

Every choice is often preceded by a decision but sometimes these two occur simultaneously.
We make choices everyday of our lives. Some of them are difficult ones as they have wide-ranging implications for the present and the future.
Others are as easy as in the decision of whether or not to get up every morning.

We make these choices consciously, especially when they have to do with dire situations and subconsciously for mundane decisions.
Whether made consciously or subconsciously a decision is still a decision and a choice is still a choice of which we must take responsibility for.
We make choices because we are free moral agents empowered and authorised by the Creator since creation to do just that.
No one else is authorised to make decisions on behalf of another, unless that person has been empowered by the person on whose behalf a decision is being made.

Be that as it may though, the right or authority endowed on each person to choose does not come without responsibility.
We are all ultimately responsible for the outcomes of the choices we make – both good and bad.
There is no argument that, as individuals, we are where we are today as a result of the choices we have had to make since we emerged into this world.

As a nation, we are where we are today because of the choices made by the leadership since the formation of this kingdom. 
Our decisions and choices have led us to where we find ourselves today.
Admittedly, some of the choices were made on our behalf by other people especially during our young and formative years when we were deemed incapable to know what is good for us.

That, on its own, does not detract from the principle that we are ultimately responsible for these decisions. 
During our years of youth somebody else, often parents, made the decisions on our behalf and hopefully in our best interest.
Even though these decisions were made on our behalf and often without our input the responsibility of their outcome still rests with us.
I had no input in choosing my name Jan Sithole. It was dictated to me by my parents and no consultation with me ever took place.

Decision

Even if it had, I doubt it if I would have added any significant value to the conversation.
Similarly the decision as to my gender, and yours for that matter was also decided on my behalf without consultation.
Honestly speaking, my parents were not consulted on this one either.
Come to think of it, there are many other decisions which you and I were not consulted on – our birth, the geographical location of our birth, our country of citizenship, our gender, our race and our choice of siblings and the extended family network.

These things were decided for us and ours was to accept them as a given, and then make the best of what had been decided.
From then onwards, especially after attaining a competent age of adulthood, the decisions became exclusively ours, and ours alone, to make. 
As a grown man, I now make decisions and choices from the minute I wake up to the time I rest my weary body.

I make these decisions on my behalf and often on other people’s behalf and to do this well, many consultations with the people have to take place.
It is our choice to decide what we want to become, how many children we want to have and what type of environment we want to raise them in, what kind of political leadership we want, and the type of social and political milieu we would want to prevail in the country.
That is our decision to make individually and, if we so choose, collectively.
We are doomed to make choices.
Being the democrat I am,. I consult widely before I make decisions especially on other people’s behalf because I don’t assume to know what they really want.

Dictators often believe they know what is good for the people but they often get it wrong, with disastrous consequences.   
Nonetheless, it is an inescapable fact that it is the choices we have made that have led us to where we are, and it is more choices which will determine where we eventually end up both as individuals and as a nation.
If we choose wisely, we are guaranteed to live and prosper.

If we choose carelessly, we are guaranteed to fail and die.
There are always two paths from which to choose; one is narrow and less-travelled and the other wide and well-travelled.
I would argue that our collective interests as a nation would be best served by choosing the former because we have tried the latter and it has led us nowhere.
When making decisions and choices, it is easy and almost natural to choose based on present circumstances instead of long term.
Decisions made like that are likely to be unsuitable for the long-term.
Over the years, as an activist, I have seen many awful examples of decisions being taken to address a short-term problem at the expense of a long-term solution.

An example that immediately comes to mind is when the security forces bash the heads of unarmed and peaceful protesters.
I have seen them bash these protesters into submission, much to their humiliation.
What they fail to see and understand is the long-term implication of their violent actions.

These security forces may end up getting their way or achieving their purpose for now but what they fail to understand is that people’s hearts will begin to harden steadily but progressively to the point where one day they will reach an irreversible tipping point.
Violence has never served any meaningful purpose nor has it ever served to create long-lasting peace and harmony in a country.
Violence usually breeds more violence and nobody wants that.

It does not matter who the perpetrator is; anyone who commits acts of violence on another, no matter how justified, deserves condemnation. 
Problems and adverse situations will always arise in life but the choice on how we choose to deal with them rests with us all.
We can choose dialogue to bridge whatever differences we may have between ourselves, thereby creating a harmonious state of existence, now and in the future.

Choosing

Alternatively, we can choose to inflict violence on one another thereby choosing to fight yet another day because violence will always escalate into more violence - guaranteed.
Leaders who choose violence as their first port of call have no vision for the future or simply do not care; they do not deserve to be occupying public office.
They are dangerous to themselves and to others and the minute they are relieved of their duties will be a minute too late already.
Leaders who make decisions and choices based on the dictates and whims of their egos have no place in modern society.
They belong to the dustbin of history, they claim they can see and yet they are blind.
Choice is a God-given right and not a privilege.

No man can take it away from us. I, therefore, pray that God inspires all our decisions and choices henceforth.
A word of caution is, this election period is an opportunity to make choices of the representatives we should entrust to form a government that should take us to the future and therefore, don’t choose political leaders based on the gifts they bring without you asking for it just before elections but as long as they hand-out the gifts, receive and eat from all Father Christmases but when you get into that ballot station, cast your vote for men and women who have the potential to bring improvement to the lives of the people of our country.

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