My beloved and I were talking the other night about the phrase, "Forcing someone to make a choice." He asked me to pick up my cup, as an example. His theory is that I have
to make a choice: pick up my cup, don't pick up my cup, knock down my
cup, set my cup on fire, a million other things, or even make the choice
of pretending i didn't hear his request or ignoring it. "Even that," he
argued, "is a choice."
When he asked me to pick
up my cup, I picked up my cup. In this, he argued, he had forced me to
make a choice and I chose to pick up my cup. My assertion is that yes I
heard him and yes I wanted to pick up my cup in order to take a drink
from it, but that I was not forced into making a choice; I would have
chosen to pick up my cup or not anyway. (We both enjoy logic.)
On a similar topic, a couple of weeks ago, I shared with a friend my belief in "Pressuring someone to to do something" or the "Reality of Pressure" using Byron Katie's ""What's the Reality of Pressure"" video. When I tell the story saying/thinking/believing I was pressured, forced, or otherwise made to do a thing, make a choice, take an action or not, I am assigning myself vulnerable to painful thoughts. Have a look...
