Have To, Choose To: A practice to help us reclaim agency

Photo by Felix_Hu, Forest, Pixabay

When I saw that the drive from Hull, MA to Haverhill, MA could take an hour and forty minutes, my mouth dropped. And that was just to get there!

I had promised a friend that I would attend an event her daughter was in. Until I checked Google Maps, going had seemed simple enough.

Then I realized I had to get dressed, eat, drive, maybe sit in traffic, and, of course, attend the event before driving home. With every have to, the thoughts turned into a weight in my chest.

But I had told my friend I would come. I value follow-through. I really wanted to show support for her daughter.

So I tried another sentence.

I choose to make this drive because I wanted to show up for people I care about. I was still committing to being in the car for more than three hours. But that weight inside of me felt lighter.

Okay, this really happened. But it was an easy experience to reframe. There are so many other harder things we deal with in life. But what if practicing on the easy stuff will help me with the hard stuff?!

Lately, I have been noticing how those two small phrases—have to and choose to— feel in my body.

When I say, “I have to,” something in me tightens and goes heavy. It is like I close in on myself.

When I say, “I choose to, because I want…,” something in me opens up.

I think what opens is the part of me that wants me to remember how much power I actually do have in my life.

I am paying closer attention to this because there is a great deal of uncertainty in my life right now. I’m aware that life is uncertain. However, sometimes I feel more acutely than others.

Uncertainty is wearying and unsettling.

Do you remember that camp game where you put your head down to the bat handle and spun around 10 times, followed by running to the opposite end of the field?

What I find more exhausting than uncertainty is the disconnection that can come with it. Often when I’m dizzied by uncertainty, I lose connection with myself. My mind moves toward what might happen, what I cannot control, or what someone else may be expecting from me.

And once I lose connection with myself, it begins to spread.

I become less present to the people around me too.

If you played that spinning bat game, you know that waiting a minute to get your bearings before running to your screaming teammates was a wise move. The small act of choosing helps me get my bearings to find my way back.

To myself first, and then to the people I love.

I know a sentence cannot move traffic, and it cannot move much heavier things than traffic either. What it can change is what I bring to what I cannot move.

Finding the want underneath

I did not invent this small translation.

Marshall Rosenberg, who spent his life teaching people how to speak without violence, wrote about the damage done by words like should and have to. Words like ‘should’ and ‘have to’ cut us off from the values that are actually moving us.

When everything becomes something we have to do, we can lose sight of why we are doing it. We may even forget that we are making a choice.

My favorite boss, Gene Schandorff, was a University Chaplain for more than 20 years. He gave me a line I’ve said to myself many times.

He said, “Sometimes we do what we have to do in order to do what we want to do.”

I love that line. Yeah, it says ‘have to,’ but the reframing is so similar to Marshall Rosenburg’s intent. There are always going to be things we do not like to do. However, we’ll choose to do them because they serve other needs!

I did not particularly want to spend three hours or more in the car that evening. I wanted to show up. Remembering that mattered, and the drive became connected to something I valued.

A conflict practice

Reframing from “I have to” to “I choose to because I want….” may not seem like a conflict skill, but hear me out.

So many conflicts begin with resentment. The word itself tells part of the story. Resentment comes from the French ressentir: to feel again.

We replay the feeling we did not like and remember what someone said or they failed to do. Then we run it through again. Gosh, I would not wish that on my enemy. Well, most days I would not.

Resentment is a killer of connection.

When I resent you, I stop relating to you and start relating to my case against you. I meet my memory of what you did or said or didn’t say or do. I keep myself from meeting the actual living, breathing human being in front of me, who, by the way, may have changed since this morning.

And all the while, resentment closes me in on myself. I become tightly connected to my own replay and less connected to you.

Reclaiming my agency does not erase another person’s responsibility. It does not ask me to ignore harm or remain in a relationship where I am being diminished.

It helps me ask:

What is mine now?

I may be able to speak, make a request, set a boundary, or ask for help. I may be able to walk away, or stay and keep working, or wait until I am grounded enough to respond.

Some choices are painful while others are terribly limited. Sometimes every available choice comes with a cost.

Still, naming what is mine helps me recover my participation in my own life.

When I stop meeting you from a place of helplessness, something changes. In me first. And sometimes, between us.

The practice of reframing a “have to” into a “choose to because I want” can diminish resentment, help us regain agency, connect with our self, and likely the other.

Choosing within real limits

I feel it is also important to say- we do not all move through the world with the same amount of freedom.

Economic realities, caregiving responsibilities, workplaces, family systems, racism, sexism, disability, and other forms of power press on people’s agency in different ways.

What I know is that a different framing will not remove a real constraint or turn coercion into freedom. It may still help us notice what remains ours.

Perhaps the sentence is:

I choose to stay in this job for now because I want financial stability while I consider what comes next.

Or:

I choose to have this conversation because I want to know whether greater honesty is possible between us.

Or:

I choose to say no because I want to protect the time and energy I have already committed elsewhere.

Sometimes the freedom available to us is very small.

The practice: From Have-To to Choose-To

I invite you to try on the practice. Choose one task you feel you “have to” do.

Write it down.

Then translate it into this form:

I choose to __________ because I want __________.

Dig for the value underneath.

Notice what happens in your body when you change the sentence. See whether you can find a desire, a relationship, or a value beneath the task.

And when you cannot find one, do not force it. Sit with that. Pray about whether this is something you still want to be doing.

The thing on your calendar may not change. The traffic certainly may not.

But you may remember that you are still here. You have values. You have desires. You have some say in what you give your life to.

That evening, I got in the car and drove to Haverhill. The drive was long. And when I arrived, I was glad I had come.

I had chosen to move toward people I cared about. Somewhere along the way, that choice also brought me back to myself.

When I remember that I am choosing, I have more of myself to bring to the people around me.

What is one “have to” sitting on your list this week?

Try the translation:

I choose to __________ because I want __________.

Tell me in the comments what you find underneath. I read every reply.

Reference

Rosenberg, M. B. (2015). Nonviolent communication: A language of life (3rd ed.). PuddleDancer Press.