Transcript for the Piece Audio version of There is No Path Not Taken

Every choice I make presents two options: the one I choose, and the one I instantly regret not having chosen. I find myself wishing for a “do-over,” as if I could roll back time and make the other choice. But of course you can’t do that. Even if you could roll back time, you couldn’t make the other choice.

What explains our choices? Well lots of things. Sometimes we have hunches. We have complicated features such as personality. Many of our choices are brought about by our beliefs and desires. And there are the laws of nature. We are at least physical creatures and our brains operate according to those laws. And what we do next is pretty much what our brains tells us to do.

But now -- do we control any of these things?

Certainly not our hunches; these just happen to us. Certainly not our personality: if nerdy people could, wouldn’t they become cool, like us? Can we control what we believe? Just try to believe that there’s an elephant directly in front of you. You can’t do it. And we certainly don’t control the laws of nature controlling our brains.

We don’t control any of the factors which control our behavior.

Living life forward it feels like we have options before us; that the road forks, and it’s up to us which path to take. But that is an illusion. There are no forks. What you “choose” is entirely determined by factors out of your control. There’s just a single road ahead, and you will like it, or not, whether or not you like it.