What If You Never Really Chose Anything?

We feel we’ve chosen.
But what if nothing was ever truly chosen?

Our careers, jobs, opinions—they all feel like ours, like our own choices.
Even when they no longer feel right, we assume we are exactly where we once decided to be.
Or where we believed we decided to be.

We climbed to our position because we were talented, because we worked hard.
Because we chose this path.
Because we decided—didn’t we?

We also chose our partner—if not always carefully, at least consciously.
Our current address.
The brand of the car parked outside.
Rationally.

We chose our studies—or at least the most important ones.
Our style, for sure.
And our outfit of the day.
The coffee shop where we grab our morning cup.
The hastily assembled lunch we eat between emails, Excel sheets, and Teams calls.

The grocery store where we know the quickest shortcut from the bakery counter to the oat milk and dark chocolate.
Our commuting route.
The favorite holiday destination we return to year after year—even though we swore we’d try something new.

Our walking pace—and the way we avoid eye contact on the bus.
How we feel and what we think.
Our relationship to money, to silence, to our reflection in the mirror.

But wait a moment.
Do we really choose these things?

The feeling of choice is real.
But what if we stop and ask where it truly arises from?
Could the choice have been any different after all?

In the clearest moments, a hint may surface: feeling and reaction simply rise from somewhere.
You say something you’ve heard before.
You choose before you even notice choosing—because in reality, there were no other options.

Perhaps even our relationship with money is something learned.
Perhaps I chose the coffee myself.
Or did I really?

There are studies and theories suggesting free will is a complete illusion.
That we are a chain of memories, echoes, and cells we never chose.
And when we can’t see what moves us, we believe we chose ourselves.

Biology and history can carry us far.
But there are things we cannot inherit—and that time can never hold.

They are born in silence, in the moment when the stories begin to quiet— and all that’s left is a stripped-down moment.

Stories the body and mind have carried on for us— but that begin to loosen their grip in the quiet.

And the more we let them fall silent, the more freedom ceases to be a choice—and becomes a state of being.

☉

When silence is forgotten, we start repeating again.
The same story, the same movements.
It feels like freedom, but often it’s just a predetermined memory.

We might glimpse it in small moments.
When your LinkedIn profile feels unfamiliar.
When your CV leaves behind an odd emptiness and quiet longing.
When the house, the station wagon, and the promise of the right kind of life have turned into burdens.

When you check your phone, just because the bus hasn’t arrived—and find yourself lost in cat videos.
When you pick up a book—but end up swiping an endless algorithmic feed.
When you promise to play with your child—and realize you’re replying to a message at the same time. Just quickly.

And we call all this freedom.

Like the main character in The Truman Show who walks the staged streets.
Living in a world that looks real—but whose boundaries were set without his knowing.
Chasing dreams someone else scripted. Even his fear of water was planted.

I haven’t always been as far from him as I would have liked to believe.

Often we keep performing the role, never questioning the scenery.
We make plans.
We strive to be good.
To fit the script—and be worthy of it.

When we wake up—even for a moment—it feels as if the possibilities to choose expand.
As if freedom becomes greater.

Even though, at a deeper level, there may have never been anything to choose from.
Perhaps freedom isn’t born from choosing—but from no longer being imprisoned by the need to choose.

And then a space arises.
Not demanding, not saving—just a quiet possibility.

☉

Truman lives in a perfect little town.
Work, friends, a beautiful home—and a staged sky.
Friends who are actors.
Shops that are just sets.
Truman is the only one who doesn’t know.

He’s happy—until a crack appears in the idyll.
A radio channel accidentally broadcasts a description of his movements.
A spotlight falls from the sky.
The father he thought he had lost appears in the street—and disappears.

Truman begins to doubt and ask questions.
Not yet awakening, but a crack.

A quiet, strange feeling: this all seems right—but something still doesn’t match.
And often, in that crack, the beginning of freedom appears.
Not necessarily the freedom to choose—but the freedom to be chosen.

It isn’t born from reacting to every thought and emotion.
Freedom is born when you see them come and go—and stop grasping at them.

No sudden awakening is needed.
Often, a quiet pause is enough.
The feeling of the crack.

That morning when your hand lingers around the coffee cup, and you simply are.
An evening walk without headphones—noticing you think less and hear more.
Or a small moment when you want to say something—but don’t—and feel the breath of freedom.

The crack often looks like nothing from the outside.
It’s an inner movement, slow and almost imperceptible.
A moment when you stop rushing to fill the empty space.

When the hurry and the script go quiet for a while, you can hear something else.
A call that doesn’t shout or demand. It promises no fame or approval. It simply is.

It stays, gently, even if you try to distract yourself with familiar thoughts and endless to-do lists.

☉

In 2002, in Kerala, I heard a whisper.
It spoke of Copenhagen and teaching.
As an idea it was distant—but as a whisper, it was true.
Impossible to justify, difficult to put into words.

I told no one.

Six years later, the whisper was still undeniable.
It hadn’t shouted or rushed.
The steps unfolded in ways I could have never scripted.

The leap was frightening—but only to the mind.
For the silence, it was simply slipping toward life.

You hear the same whispers.
And because you’re still reading this, perhaps you’ve already recognized them.

Maybe free will is an illusion—as fragile as our thoughts.
And yet we live as if we chose.
The experience of choosing arises, and it feels real.

Perhaps it’s not about whether the choice is truly free—but about what we trust when the choice feels our own.
Do we know who chooses?
The mind or the heart?
Fear or that quiet, unmistakable yes?

Exactly where the freedom of the mind ends, another kind of freedom begins.
Something chooses us when we are quiet enough to hear.

A whisper beyond mind and thought is like a body exhaling after returning home.
Humble—but captivating.
It doesn’t justify—but leaves the heart no other choice.

The noise of the mind contains the need to prove, to strive, to achieve.
It looks meaningful—but hides fear beneath.
Its promises flatter the ego:
“When you achieve this, you will finally be enough.”

True whispers ask for nothing.
They don’t fit into résumés.
Nor into the beautiful stories others expect.
In my case, they have stirred confusion where familiar answers feel safe.

True whispers settle into the body like a breath that finds its home.
They are quiet yeses that have always been there.

They don’t tell you how to become something.

They remind you of what you already are.

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