Do you remember “Choose Your Own Adventure” books? At the risk of dating myself, they were around when I was little. They were books that laid out scenarios and storylines, then, at key points, the reader could choose a path to continue the story. Sort of the first version of interactive role play, I guess. (That probably explains why most of the ones that I saw were with sci-fi subject matter.)
Even so, I LOVED these books. They were safe windows where you could see the choices clearly, make a decision, and then follow the chain of events stemming from that decision. If you were completely anal retentive like I was (and still am), you went back to those decision trees and followed the other choices, to see how things could have played out differently. Yes, I know that’s cheating, kind of, and life certainly doesn’t give us any do-overs. I’m sure a therapist could find a connection to my current-day elaborate mind maps when making decisions and commitments, but that’s another topic entirely.
Anyway, these books gave me a way to put some decision-making notches in my belt without having the *real* experiences. They taught me to reason things out without the emotional ties to one choice or another. (How many times have we all made really stupid choices because we really-really wanted the other thing??)
It probably helped that I was young enough when I read them to not make snap judgments or automatically form opinions. (These books gave me confidence for my later abilities to make snap judgments, so YAY!) Sadly, my reasoning skills were probably a lot better back then; more black-and-white and less gray.
I ran across some of these books the other day and I started thinking… How great would it be if you could do that in life, as a grown up? How would your relationships progress? What would your behavior look like? Would you recognize the game-changing decisions –before you had the benefit of hindsight? Would you be able to objectively review things and make clear decisions? Would you learn to ACT, instead of to REACT?
Even so, I LOVED these books. They were safe windows where you could see the choices clearly, make a decision, and then follow the chain of events stemming from that decision. If you were completely anal retentive like I was (and still am), you went back to those decision trees and followed the other choices, to see how things could have played out differently. Yes, I know that’s cheating, kind of, and life certainly doesn’t give us any do-overs. I’m sure a therapist could find a connection to my current-day elaborate mind maps when making decisions and commitments, but that’s another topic entirely.
Anyway, these books gave me a way to put some decision-making notches in my belt without having the *real* experiences. They taught me to reason things out without the emotional ties to one choice or another. (How many times have we all made really stupid choices because we really-really wanted the other thing??)
It probably helped that I was young enough when I read them to not make snap judgments or automatically form opinions. (These books gave me confidence for my later abilities to make snap judgments, so YAY!) Sadly, my reasoning skills were probably a lot better back then; more black-and-white and less gray.
I ran across some of these books the other day and I started thinking… How great would it be if you could do that in life, as a grown up? How would your relationships progress? What would your behavior look like? Would you recognize the game-changing decisions –before you had the benefit of hindsight? Would you be able to objectively review things and make clear decisions? Would you learn to ACT, instead of to REACT?
Who knows? So, let’s see! After all, life is an adventure, or it SHOULD be. The word “choose” comes from “choice,” so why don’t we try to make better choices? We can determine if ours is an adventure with a happy ending, or if we turn out to be the scary skeleton that gets found to warn off other adventurers. I don't think any of us wants to be a cheap prop masquerading as a cautionary tale.
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