A note on making the choice that I picked my parents
Our lives are the accumulation of moments and our actions in those moments. One would think that these lived moments become our solid unchanging past but as our perspectives expand our past, present and future expand as well. For example in my memoir Love Trust Gratitude Healing: Turning a Battle into a Dance and making Peace with Cancer I write about when I was in my twenties struggling with my emotions and feeling despondent over the future because I had such a lousy past particularly the unfair treatment I received from my dad, I decided to take the position that I chose it. Yes, I decided that I chose my parents. This choice shifted my perspective from a passive role to an active role. The overwhelming misery I felt about my past became challenges I had overcome on the way to a meaningful and more content life.
The bottom line is the choice that I picked my parents worked for me. It freed me from my past in many ways. But I use this notion of choice with caution and view it as an entirely personal act on the journey of my healing. I would not under any circumstances apply it to anyone else. There is a danger in projecting this on others. One of the underlying and quite damaging thought patterns in this country is that the poor are to blame for their poverty. That somehow it was their choice to be poor so it is a waste to do anything about it. This is a selfish low quality response that ignores the human devices put in place that generate poverty. It contains no love. The choice that I picked my parents was a high quality response made to heal myself and increase my ability to generate more love. In the important choices we have to make we should ask ourselves first: will it generate more love?