Choice: the power of choosing, the freedom of choice, the opportunity to choose. It means that there is room for selection, room for preference, room for desires, room for consideration. It means the person making the choice can decide what matters most. Is it size, color, or cost that influences my choice the most? It might not be any of these – the person making the choice does not have to justify the criteria or their ranking. They have the power to choose. Choice is intention. It speaks to an intention to have a specific outcome. The intended outcome and therefore the choice is driven and framed by personal desires and goals. It can also just be plain old preference. I prefer to live alone; therefore I choose options in my life that afford me this preference. My employment choices, my financial choices, my geographic choices are all grounded in my desire to be able to choose where and how I live. Chance, on the other hand, is less driven and not framed. It is rooted in random possibility. Leveraging my fondness for the Oxford dictionary, chance is “the occurrence and development of events in the absence of any obvious design”. It suggests a willingness to just see what happens. It relies on uncertain outcomes. Outcomes that may be totally opposite from any desires or goals. But, because no design exists, not plans have been made and no choices have been executed… life becomes a series of uncertain outcomes.
