LEFT OR RIGHT, where do you go? Black or white, which suits you? Rich brat or a humble struggler, who will you opt to be with?
Choices -- we get to face them every single day. From what shirt to wear, which lipstick to put on, sunny side up or boiled, to briefs or jockeys, choices are always there for you and me.
At work, there’s the daily option to either beat the biometrics or use traffic as an alibi for tardiness. Some find so much satisfaction in heating up the chair with their lazy butts than move a finger or two and pound the keyboard. Others decide to be the resident Inday Badiday than to flex leg muscles for fear of exposing those varicose veins. And then there are those who are so blessed with superior intelligence, but are non-performing assets. These are instant geniuses who know a lot but don’t do much; shame on them.
In the academe, there are students who would go for excellence while others go for indolence. The former spend hours studying while the latter, spoiled brats usually, go malling without buying something. And then some will burn those eyelashes to perfect the exams while others try to perfect those cheat cards.
Some teachers will opt to extend lecture hours to discuss the subject while others use nap as the predicate. The former love it when pupils participate, the latter hate the noise. Of course teachers are there to teach but some have more dedication and are better educators than others.
Choices in business also are aplenty like in the food sector. Fast-food chains either live by speed or the lack of it. I know of one where service is so fast that waiters forget to serve you at all. Before you know it, they give you the bill without you having to choose from the menu. Some fast-food houses, unfortunately, simply don’t know what fast means; service is so damn slow you get served breakfast the next day.
Salons aren’t exempted as well, for the toughest of choices likewise hound them every single day. Re-bond or hot oil, skin-head or all-out-bald, barber’s cut or trim and burgundy or black are some of the options hairdressers provide. Of course there are other amenities they give out for free; gossip is the most popular though.
Romance has the most choices in comparison. Would you go for beauty or brains? I can go for both anytime, but such is hard to find and the going rate is sometimes too high. And the next thing you know, you’re with a white elephant.
Some women and men may have less in facial architecture but are attractively smart. There are a few, on one hand, who are pretty and handsome but are annoyingly stupid. “Row Por” as my friend Bernie would say.
Some women prefer older guys primarily because of the wisdom. But if the guy is old as well as rich, the reason varies. The woman sings “I wanna grow old with you” while the man counters “Dadalhin kita sa ‘king palasyo”. Of course, and as always, the older man dies first and the now-single and available lady sings the “hallelujah chorus” to end a tragicomedy.
One famous adage tells us that the choices we make today will decide our future; short of saying that we are at the mercy of the consequences. If you choose to smoke, lung cancer becomes your future. If you choose to eat too much fat, sugar and oils, tricycle drivers will avoid you. If you choose to hate fluoride, your breath becomes raw material for C4 or LPG; either way it’s lethal.
So while there’s still time, always choose to be right, for in the end the choices you make will justify what you had become.