I could smoke myself into an early grave, but I choose not to. Just the mere sight of those smoking behind the bike sheds at school was enough to put me off smoking for life. Never have, never will.
I could become a walking distillery, so as to make Oliver Reed seem a teetotaller, but I choose to drink in moderation. 1) The hangover I experienced for the first time at 19, served as the perfect aversion therapy. Never again. 2) Watching a relative die of complete circulatory collape, due to extreme alcohol poisoning - which wasn't a pretty sight - was the perfect object lesson.
I could take every known (& unknown) hallucinogen in existence, but I choose to be completely drug-free. I like my brain & how it works 'as is'; if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and all that jazz.
I could kill/mutilate/rape a man/woman/child; also damage/steal others' property, but I choose not to. Mainly because I wouldn't like it if someone else did such to me, ergo..! [/Code of Hammurabi]
Choice. 'Tis a most powerful thing indeed.
Jean Rasczak (Michael Ironside): 'Figuring things out for yourself is practically the only freedom anyone really has nowadays. Use that freedom.'
-"Starship Troopers"
The freedom to decide how one acts. Makes for a morally superior person, I find. I choose not to smoke/be an alcoholic/take drugs etc. I choose not to steal from/rape/kill others, because I can.
'When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.'
-Abraham Lincoln
Being morally superior. Feels good, man.
Moral: Religions don't have the monopoly on them, you know. [/Hosea 13:16]