I have no choice but to know the power of my own "Free Will"

     I just had a mind blowing experience. One for my own history book. I don't know exactly how to describe the feelings accompanying it, but mostly it's comfort and inspiration. I know God has a plan for me, but I need to choose it. That has never hit home harder than it has this week. I know this post may be a lot to read but I'm mostly writing it for me. So you don't have to read all of it if you don't want to. I just know that I need to record the thoughts and experiences of this week somewhere, and seeing as I'm better at typing then I am at writing I decided to do it here.

     It all started with a little chat from an unexpected person. I was sitting at home, kinda depressed about life. Nothing seemed to be going the way I wanted. I had missed some opportunities I was excited for, I felt I had almost shut the door on other opportunities but don't know how. I was just not in the best of moods. For some reason this friend decided to come over, and just hang out. He may have been the last person I'd expect to come. Well we get talking about life. The usual subjects, school, girls, and work. Mostly girls. He gave me some advice that has since changed the course of my life. He told me to set some goals of things I could accomplish, but would take a lot of effort and will power to do. So I did. I decided this year I'm going to run a marathon.

     Since then, everything has changed. As I've been training for my marathon, I've seen certain things change in my life. I've been more confident, had more energy, and am able to focus more on my studies now then ever before. I've even felt more spiritual then I have in a long time. Now the best part is that it all started with a decision I made. The plan to, no matter what pain, anguish or exhaustion, complete the 26.2 miles.

     Now the scary part. So about a week after I made my choice and started training, I found myself studying the very thing that has changed the course of my life. Free will. My ethics and values class had me listening for almost an hour to two psychologists debate about the reality of free will. Whether it exists and therefore we have the ability to change the course of our lives in a matter of seconds, or it does not and our lives have already been predetermined, therefore making free will the simple result of cause and effect with the electric impulses in our brains. Well, I'm not one to be able to focus on two people talking for an hour then read pages and pages of what they had talked about without giving my thoughts a little break. So that was my plan as I was studying the hall of flags on campus. Well my break was a book. "Mere Christianity". As you may have read in my previous blog this book didn't give me the break I was looking for. Instead, I was lured into the idea of a common sense of right and wrong and the power our decision can make. So basically the opposite of the lecture I was listening to earlier. This of course had me stop and think about what I really believe about free will. Well, at that point my spirituality and possibly my own arrogance took over. I saw that a world without free will is a world without hope. Without peace or excitement, without adventure and curiosity. None of the greatest feelings would exist if we could not will our own decisions. With this thought I closed my book and computer and went to study something a little easier to learn. Biology.

     My experience couldn't end there though. Seeing that I had some free time on my hands tonight I decided to watch a movie before going to bed. I chose a movie I didn't know anything about, but I've seen it on my roommates shelf for a while and was curious to see it. The movie was "The Adjustment Bureau". If anyone knows anything about this movie it's about the power of free will. After the end of the movie and thinking all about what has happened to me recently I can't help but think I've learned one of the biggest lessons of my life. All the time we worry about doing the right thing. Fearing that a wrong choice could yield some horrible consequences. Well I've been reminded now that the best part of life are those opportunities. The chance to choose to take a chance. We have an enormous potential in us to be incredible people. It all comes down to our choices. From big choices like deciding what school to go to or who to marry. To the little choices of choosing to keep the feet moving for another .2 miles even though the rest of our body may be screaming to stop. These choices form who we are and what we can become. I've come to the ultimate conclusion that no matter what certain experiments say, with our agency we cause all the effects in the world.

Free will

Look at you. You're reading my blog. What made you decide to read my blog? Is it that you and I are somewhat acquainted or related so you feel an obligation or a duty to read my post and determine for yourself what you now think of me? Maybe you find the blog more interesting than listening to your biology professor lecture on the structure of atoms and isomers in a 25 L beaker of water. These could be some of the many possibilities as to why you are now reading this. Now let me entertain another thought for you. Studies have shown that before you clicked to read, or even consciously recognized the choice before you, you chose. Your brain is constantly working and in use. You subconsciously make the decision of what to do before you even know you have the decision. Some of the worlds most renowned scientists argue the fact that we have no real "free will" but that your choices and decision are merely an effect to a cause. A result of the electric activity going on in your brain stimulated by previous events. Thus our lives, no matter what we do, are predetermined.
      Well at least that's what my ethics class wants me to believe. I had a kind of interesting experience today as I sat studying at school. I would read and study my ethics class homework, then take a break and read from a book I'm interested in. The interesting part was that at one point I was reading how scientists want to prove that we have no free will, then for leisure I would read from C.S. Lewis' book "Mere Christianity" stating that all human being are obligated to obey all laws except the law of nature which we choose to disobey. It was almost my two interests and passions fighting each other. On one side, science and health, and on the other spirituality.
      Well, as of now the spirituality took over. Lewis talked of the idea that everyone in the world believes in a right or wrong. If they say they don't, simply break a promise and they will say you are in the wrong for doing so, assuming that there was a standard to be kept. An unspoken law agreed to by both parties that the promise would be kept. This is why we have free will. Naturally we see every being understanding and comprehending this unspoken law. Whether or not they follow it is up to them. Lewis also points out that although we may know of this law we don't always obey it. In fact we disobey it almost every day. We make excuses to not do something because of our extenuating circumstances. We didn't call our friend because we were simply too busy. Broke the rule. How you never would have promised to so-and-so to do that one thing if you would have known how busy you would be at the time. Either way we have all made those excuses and we made a choice to do so, it wasn't simply an electronic impulse to the brain but something deeper.
     Although free will is true, I don't believe it to be free. There was price paid by a perfect man. A man who never made those excuses, a man who on on his way to see a friend who he had promised to see helped others on the way, and when learning about the death of his friend, broke the law of physics to bring him from the dead and fulfill his promise. Choice came with a price, and consequences have been paid for, if we so choose.
     Needless to say I had an exciting study and read today, because I chose to.

What are your thoughts?