by Pamela Ashton

Created on: January 06, 2010

“Living is like licking honey off a thorn.”(source unknown) What an apropos observation for a discussion on whether free will has a hidden cost. Free will, according to Webster’s is “. . . something done freely and voluntarily.. . .It is the doctrine that the conduct of human beings expresses personal choice and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces.”(Webster's Encyclopedic, Gramercy, NY, 1996 p 765.) Henry Ward Beecher said, “God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how.” That is the decision, the exercise of our free will, that we make every moment we draw breath upon this earth: how we will conduct our lives.

Free will is not for the faint of heart. In every decision we make; every time we make a choice, we are also choosing the natural consequence of that choice. If one chooses to have just one more drink before heading home, and then chooses to drive, the consequence may vary from making it home okay, and just having a horrible hangover the next day, or the consequence may be as severe as running off the road and hitting a tree. If a person chooses to satisfy their hunger with ice cream and cake rather than fresh fruit, the consequence may just be a few extra pounds around the waistline, or may be a triple bypass surgery farther down the road. The natural cost of our choices is not all demanded at once. Some build for many, many years before demanding payment. The question, however, is not if there is a cost to our free will choices, but if it is hidden.

We know that in order for there to be an exercise of free will, or personal agency, there must be opposites to choose from. The cake or the apple. To drink and drive, or give your keys to someone else. Often choice is made between two things that may appear to have equally good qualities, and often there are more than two choices. To choose one thing over another or others, always has a cost. The only lie comes in believing we never have a choice at all. As we rise in the morning and begin our day, and in every waking moment, we are processing and filtering thousands of decisions, from those that are mundane, to those that are life altering. Attached to each and every choice are consequences. Perhaps we don’t take the time to look for them; perhaps some things are so automatic we just don’t take notice; in this way, the resulting “cost” may seem hidden.

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