A perplexing challenge a person encounters, not once but many times, during a lifetime, is choosing between two rights, that is, making a decision when "right vs. right." Making such decision can be crucial. Often it has an impact not only on the person making the decision but other people.

When "right vs. wrong" is the issue making a decision is easier than when the issue is "right vs. right." In "right vs. wrong" the line of demarcation is clear. Even when a person chooses wrong he can rationalize or justify during it because of the benefits it produces, which may iinclude avoiding or minimizing painful consequences. Ethics or morality may not be considered by the person choosing wrong.

Making a decision when "right vs right" may be difficult, even heart-wrenching. Making such decision may involve something more than doing the right thing, as this axiom is generally understood to mean. At stake is choosing the most appropriate right of the two or more right options. Choosing any right option may not be enough, especially when it is not the best one.

How can a person know which right option to choose? Some insight into this question may be gained from reflecting on the poem: "The Road not Taken"
by Robert Frost:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorrow I could not take both and be
one traveler, long I stood and looked
down one as far as I could to where it
bent in the undergrowth...and I -- I
took the one less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference.

One might ask "What if the traveler had taken the more traveled road? The answer to that question is not kown. But for the traveler who took the less traveled road it  "made all the difference."

At such time when a person comes to the fork in the road which may be the case when he is faced with "right vs. right" discernment is the most important quality needed to make the decision to choose the appropriate right. Discernment is the power to distinguish and select what is true or appropriate which may be obscured by appearances or rhetoric.

Discernment emanates from the soul and is spirit-revealed, spirit-directed and spirit-propelled. It enables a person to recognize regardless as to how right or equal two or more rights appear to be that even though they are rights that they are not equal any more than two leaves on a single tree are equal. They are unique. It is the uniqueness of a right option that makes it the most appropriate right for a specific situation that is governed by situation ethics. Therefore, the decision is ethical.

Having selected the appropriate right rather than any  right the decision-maker accepts the consequences of his decision and harbors no regret or feeling of guilt. He has no desire to say "I am sorry for having made that decision." He has the conviction that he was directed by the Spirit who was the final arbitrator in the mediation of the "right vs. right" process.

In light of the aforementioned, it is clear that making the right decision when choosing from"right vs. right" need not be difficult, complex, frustrating, soul-wrenching or a dilemma, as is often the case. When the transcendent power of Spirit-directed discernment is applied in decision-making choosing the appropriate right is easy. Be aware that discernment is not a matter of reason or analytical thinking. It may be best understood by the axiom "Don't swim, float," which implies surrender to the Cosmic Source.

Let me end this discussion with two questions: "What about things that are neither "right nor wrong" or things that are both "right and wrong?" The follow-up question: "How can these things be?"

Copyright 2013

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