Choice is an exciting word with us making decisions based on our freedoms and rights. The perfect example of this is casting our votes at the polling site. We thoughtfully think through the ballot and soberly mark the ballot. These days I vote by mail but even so there is a special dignity of putting the sealed and signed ballot envelope into the mailbox.
A more common form of choice is going to the supermarket and buying groceries. Marketers go out their way to make their product seem appealing so that we will choose and buy it. We do this so casually that we think nothing of it.
Some other choices we make take more consideration like the goals we have on our IPP. We need to ask ourselves is this goal, something that I truly want on my IPP or is it something others are telling me I should have. Putting a goal on an IPP that I don’t want is a waste of time for all parties concerned.
It is important to remember that making a choice sometimes involves others. No matter how much I want something, if I can’t get others to make matching choices, I am going nowhere. This is where communication and persuasion comes into play. They are like a lubricant that keeps an engine running smoothly.
Some of us with disabilities are denied choices–we can’t sign our name, enter in contracts, have relationships, or choose are job. I personally feel the lack of the right to choose is demoralizing. I ask myself why make all the effort to reach a goal if I lack the right to choose it.
It is through choice that we celebrate our power and our dignity. We shouldn’t take the right of choice lightly. Before ADA, IDEA, and Section 504, we didn’t have the rights to choose. We need to be grateful to those who fought and struggled to give us our rights.