Beware or Bewail

By Ngounibou Thiumai

Like all sophisticated weapons or tools, choice can be utilized both for hurting and healing, dismantling and building, splitting and joining, or tearing and repairing. Factually, heaven or hell, life or death, victory or defeat, are simply a choice away. Beware or Bewail is primarily intended for those who are craving to: discover the incredible power of choice; understand when and why they make wrong choices; receive priceless principles on how to loathe good choice and cherish the best, and avoid making decisions that bring irrevocable heartache.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Notion Press
• Release date: Apr 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9789383808007

Book preview

Choices

INTRODUCTION

Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things. I am tempted to think there are no little things.

–Bruce Barton

Whoever reads at least these words has made a choice – a choice to read. And if that is you, who is reading these words, you are bound to make another choice from the following alternatives: pause, continue, discontinue. By picking anyone of them you have made another decision. And on and on you are entangled to make choice after choice. But every time you make a choice you are either building up or tearing down your future life glory. That tiny and ostensibly insignificant choice is a significant element of life as a whole. If one is not beware of his choice today, he will definitely bewail one day because of his choice.

Even before you finish reading the first paragraph of the book, innumerable, innocent, ignorant and pathetic folks have made myriads of wrong choices that will dictate their lives and destiny because they have turned a deaf ear to the power of choice that impacts their lives.

This book aims to sternly remind everybody that life is all about choice. We have just one life to live with numerous choices to make. From cradle to grave and from dawn to dusk we are made to choose and live. You cannot say, ‘I am not going to opt anything for a moment,’ for that itself is a choice. The bad news is: choices have consequences. It may lead you to life or death and failure or success. What we choose every day, regardless of its size, is a giant step that writes our future standing. Therefore, the art of making a decision is a very significant education everyone must acquire.

You may take a nice look at yourself in the mirror to know what you look like, but not who you are. Don’t be deceived, what you see there is not the real you! What you think, what others say about you cannot even accurately determine who you are. The right barometer of your real identity is what you choose. Your daily choices are the indicators of your identity. And what you will be tomorrow is also determined by what you are choosing now.

Nothing is more disquieting than the fact that I came to know the profundity and the impact of choice too late. I wonder why the so-called wise men of my village or town never presaged me if they had this knowledge! Oh the untold devastation and innumerable wreckages that were incurred by the people who made happy-go-lucky choices! Just imagine what the inexorable consequences of disobedience in the garden of Eden, some thousand years back, has done to human beings as a whole. The Bible records the story of those tragic consequences of one man’s sin that still break the hearts of many people today.

Those of us who have growing up children and grandchildren need to seriously ponder upon the brevity of our lives and the urgency of warning our generation of the consequence of a wrong choice, lurking somewhere to rob the innocent. Personally I believe there is, in the heart of every wise man, a valuable lesson he or she has learnt and strongly desires to caution the young generation of our days. Some of us have had the experience of severe painful moments in life due to our own stupid choices. I don’t think you want to pass on that awful experience to someone you care for. Do you? There are, in fact, too many things to learn for ourselves; and too many things to teach others. I have literally witnessed wayward drunkards, on their deathbed, with no opportunity to caution their innocent children and explain to them the reasons for their suffering.

Sadly, this is the most neglected area of study. Have you ever come across a school or a university that offers a course on making the right choice? Is there a textbook that talks about decision? You will hardly find poems and hymns emphasizing the magnitude, power and consequence of choice.

In his book Choices, Dr. Shad Helmstetter said it well: you may think that in life, a lot of things happen to you along the way. The truth is, in life, you happen to a lot of things along the way.

Beware or Bewail is a book primarily intended for those who are craving to:

 discover the incredible power of choice;

 understand why and when they make wrong choices;

 receive priceless principles on how to loathe good choice and cherish the best choice; and

 avoid making decisions that bring irrevocable heartache.

It is divided into two parts. Part one outlines the characteristic or nature of choice and answers the question of why should one beware of his choice.

The eight characteristics or nature of choice are: choice is exceedingly crucial, choice has incredible capacity, choice has consequence, choice compels choice, choice is contagious, choice is costly and choice is compulsory.

Part two suggests important guidelines to making worthy choice that will keep one from remorse and heartaches. This section answers the question of how should one make good decisions.

If you are really serious about life choices and you are more than willing to learn something about it, before you proceed to the first chapter of the book, I urge you to ponder the following three questions that may be helpful for application:

1. Can you recollect just one significant decision, wrong or right, you have made in the past that still has either positive or negative impact in your life today?

2. What was the worst choice or decision you have ever made?

3. If you are given another chance to make the same choice now, how differently will you do this today?

If you have all the answers of the above three questions now, do not delay, right away flip to the first chapter of the book and see what is prepared for you. As you read the book, compare your experience along with the explanation of the book in order that you may be illuminated beyond the scope and content of the book.

PART ONE

THE NATURE OF CHOICE

Chapter One

Choice Is Exceedingly Crucial

Learning what to choose, and how to choose, may be the most important education you will ever receive.

– Dr. Shad Helmstetter

Someone asked an illiterate man: what is the difference between ignorance and apathy? He honestly replied, ‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’ My fear is that the majority of people may give the same answer when they are asked about the significance of choice in their lives. However, I am convinced that the topic of choice is not a thing to be taken lightly.

I often wonder and ask, what is it that a human being does more frequently on this earth? Is it thinking, talking, movement or something else? Now I am convinced the thing we do most on this earth is making choice. Because, prior to your action, you have to choose what part of your body should move, whether your hand or leg, and you have to also decide when or how to move it. Whether you speak, think or move, you have to first make a choice consciously or unconsciously. So then, what you do more frequently on this earth is choosing. There is not a time you can do something without first making a choice.

Meaning of Choice and Decision

Choice consists of the mental process of thinking involved with the process of judging the merits of multiple options and selecting one of them for action. Some simple examples include deciding whether to get up in the morning or go back to sleep, or selecting a given route for a journey. More complex cases (often decisions that affect what a person thinks or their core beliefs) include choosing a lifestyle, religious affiliation, or political position.

While decision, according to World Dictionary of Christian Ethics, is an act of choosing which can be thought of as issuing from and involving the total being of a man, choice implies the freedom to choose from a set of persons or things.¹

That means, decision is a subset of choice: a small segment or part of choice. To illustrate further, every choice is not necessarily a decision, but every decision involves choice. Some choices can be made, sometimes, without consciousness, but decision cannot be made unconsciously for it must involve our whole mental, emotion and spirit. The term choice is generic in nature, whereas its synonym, decision, is specific. So, whenever we talk about choice, we have both decision and the act of choosing in mind. And often they are interchangeably used in this book.

You Are What You