With the rugby coaches enjoying the fruits of recent All Black success, you have to wonder whether they aren’t also feeling a little smug that their game strategy is finally working despite the public berating of the last twelve months. Their great hope will be that the decision to follow same plan will ultimately propel 15 large blokes to win the next world cup.
Yet such decisions are risky considering the momentum of unknown factors that only become apparent when the future turns into the past? They just don’t know if the current plan will keep working. They can’t know. The point however is that they decide together.
Like most people I make decisions every day. In most cases they are easy because I can assume what the outcomes will be. When my 13-year-old son asks to drive the car I can say no without concern – he hasn’t got a license. However, when he has one the decision will not be easy anymore. All to often circumstances unfold in such a way that making a decision brings about sleepless nights and cold sweats.
The philosopher, SØren Kierkegaard explored this “decision making angst” in books with gloomy titles like, “Fear and Trembling”, “Sickness unto death” and “The concept of dread”. Throughout his writing his famous saying, “anxiety is the dizziness of freedom” is echoed over and again. Kierkegaard claimed that it’s our freedom to choose that creates the anxiety we often face. Because a choice is ours, so is the responsibility.
The programme “Deal or no Deal” on television reveals this anxiety in action. It’s not game a game of intelligence, but rather a finely balanced set of statistical chances. Each choice increases or decreases the chance of financial gain. Every decision made is often done so in the presence of family members, which means the responsibility vs. risk factor is in constant tension. Any pre-planned way of making decisions is often discarded in the heat of the televised moment.
I don’t like heights. Partly the fear comes from a lack of experience and the very rational terror of falling. Some years ago I visited the Sears Tower in Chicago. Standing on the top floor looking down, the fear of falling was over-taken by the realisation that I could actually jump. The axis of my anxiety shifted with the comprehension that the only thing that stopped me doing so was my choice not to.
Choice sounds good, but in many situations, as Sartre put it, “We are condemned to be free”.
Jesus claimed that the “truth sets us free”. The truth he was teaching was not based on individualised philosophy, but in the God given values he lived. Jesus never intended that we wrestle with how those values work on our own; we have to wrestle together.
Following Christ in daily life is not a solo journey. We can choose to share our decisions with others. This is also a freedom. The responsibility may still be ours, but the angst is halved and when we decide together.