images/stories/articles/jelly-beans.jpg

Four brightly coloured jelly beans pulsed in stark contrast to the white ceramic plate upon which they lay. Red, orange, green and purple became diffuse splashes of colour smudged in its reflective surface. The boy glanced from one to the other licking his lips, his father’s words echoing in his ears,

“Decide on what you would like.”

He let out a sigh and then reached over and picked up the red one and put it into his mouth. Immediately his eyes squeezed closed as the intense berry flavour claimed his attention. “Yummy,” he murmured to no one in particular.

"So, what made you decide on the red one?” the question bringing the boy back to the present.

“Um,” he stalled, probing with his tongue to unstick the soft jelly that had attached itself to his teeth. When he had recovered every last delicious morsel he replied, “I like the taste of the red one best and it’s my favourite colour.”

“Hmm,” said Dad, “so you must have formed some ideas or judgements about which jelly bean you like and you used those to decide that the red one is best.” “Yea, whatever … well, I really like them all, but I like the red ones best.”

“Good. Now, do you realise that by deciding red is best, you limit yourself to only having red? Even though you like them all, you limit yourself by deciding you have no-choice.”

“What,” exclaimed the boy, “how does that work?” “Well, I'll tell you,” said Dad, “it’s all about being aware of the difference between deciding and choosing.”

“You see, the mind is always seeking to reduce our choices down to two - in a primitive sense it is either ‘fight’ or ‘flight.’ The mind is a binary system – on or off; zeros and ones - and it struggles to take action when there are too many choices.”

“We judge the choices available to us, comparing the rights and wrongs of them, the good and bad; until finally it becomes a simple matter to eliminate the most wrong until the most right is left. It’s like being in a restaurant with a huge menu. It can be really difficult to decide because we are analysing and comparing all of the meals. Often we give up and say, ‘I’ll just have that one because I normally like that meal,’ and after doing that a few times we end up always only having that meal. We create a habit that begins to limit the variety of food we can receive.”

“When we are fixed on deciding something, we go through a process of eliminating all of our choices until we only have two left. Then, we decide on one and in that moment we have no-choice. When there is only one thing left, where is the choice? Decide means to ‘cut-away,’ and we are really skilled at doing that in our lives.”

"Making a decision prevents anything that doesn’t match your decision from coming into your life." G M. Douglas

“Decisions and the judgements that they are based upon limit what you will allow yourself to receive.”

“How many jelly beans did you have to choose from son?” “Four,” replied the boy. “And how many jelly beans went into your mouth,” asked Dad?” “Only one,” he admitted glumly. “Ok, let’s see if we can improve on that,”

The father took another red jelly bean out of the packet and placed it on the white plate with the other three. “Back to four choices,” he smiled at the boy. “Listen carefully,” said Dad. “Stop judging and comparing these sweets; simply choose what you would like.”

The boy thought for a while, considering everything that had happened. He looked at all of the brightly coloured beans and then reached out and picked them all up. One by one he placed them in his mouth - red, orange, green and purple - and his face screwed up with delicious pleasure.

When he had finished eating, his father smiled at him and asked, “So, what did you do differently?” The boy faced his Dad with a sticky grin and replied, “I realised if I didn’t judge then I couldn’t decide and if I couldn’t decide then I was free to choose what I really wanted ... everything.”

“Yes.” said Dad, “It is our judgements that limit what we allow ourselves to receive. In a world of unlimited choice and possibility, most people create their lives by deciding they have no-choice. We may only have true freedom of choice without judgement and then we are free to choose without limitation.”