Showcase: Choices + When Life Says, ‘Surprise!’ + Choices We Make

Edited by Nick Burdett

Hello. It’s Nick here again for my second Showcase.

When looking at the theme for this week, I noted the Showcase pages over the last couple of months have often been about choices where a proactive / making changes approach was undertaken. Reading through the submissions I found that some people took the Choices theme and flipped it around. Sometimes it’s a choice taken away that is in focus.

A special mention this week to International Women’s Day (8th March), and Women’s Empowerment Month. As someone who works in the heavily male-dominated IT industry, it has been good to see the recent Women in Tech events in the Data Centre industry and various efforts to educate and inspire women to get into tech roles from colleges or getting back into work after having children. I look forward to seeing this materialise in future recruits to the industry.

Fortunately, this is not something the writing community seems to suffer from as the Write On! magazine is stocked full of awesome, inspiring women who have always offered help and encouragement where needed.

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My first piece is a good example of not making choices and it comes from Alison Awbery, who offers some really solid life advice.

Choices

Do you like making and drinking your tea or coffee the same way each day? The chances are, you do. You will use less energy when you repeat a familiar action and choose to replicate exactly what you did before. Making choices takes energy, both physically and cerebrally. It’s  highly likely it took you many efforts and adjustments to hone your ideal ‘Goldilocks’ tea or coffee. Not only is it just right, but your brain can now reduce the effort involved. What a relief, as your it’s already juggling the next choice you need to make.

Have you ever experienced a meltdown moment? A plethora of decisions needing making from every direction, all at once, it would seem. Is that even possible? It’s not a comfortable place to be. Multitasking, we’re informed by the experts, is not good for us. Do one thing at a time. Does your mind feel as though there’s a never-ending list constantly reshuffling running through it? Apparently, the average person consciously makes two thousand decisions an hour when awake. Wow!

Reducing choices actually brings about a sense of calm and can lead to increased productivity and time to do something else you’d rather be doing. Oliver Burkeman talks about this in his bestselling book Four Thousand Weeks, with tips on how to make good use of our finite time. He describes how you can achieve more by reducing the number of choices you have to pull from your lists. Write the list, don’t keep it in your head. It sounds counterintuitive but have you ever noticed the time and money saved by shopping in a small local shop versus a trip to the hypermarket? The limited choice of washing up liquid between three brands versus three aisles of the stuff: decisions, decisions.

Now you’ve freed up some time, choose to do ‘something different’ with it. The reason is that novel experiences are good for you in so many ways. Start with making a wish list, refine it and reduce it again. Then it will be handy when you have the opportunity to choose something from your list. It might be as simple as taking five minutes standing outdoors in nature, listening to the birds, or practising a new skill, etc. This method works for choosing films, podcasts, books and lots more.

How can we ever know we made the right choice? Can we ever truly know beyond any doubt? Perhaps not. Accept that too rigid a routine with too little choice or change can make you a dullard. The next best thing you can do  is to make a decision; choose. Try not to dwell on it, you’ve already discussed it internally, and be done.

© Alison Awbery, 2026

Connect with Alison on Instagram: @plot59awellbeingwithnature

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Our next piece is a debut from Prachi Verma. I think this represents many people who stumble into careers, myself included. I believe it’s flash fiction, but the flow of dialogue mixed with the prose really drew me in.

When Life Says: “Surprise!”

I used to believe choices shaped our lives.
Now I’m convinced life just sits in a corner with popcorn, watching me plan everything… and then does exactly the opposite.

Back in college, I was sure I’d become a fierce news reporter. I pictured myself with a mic, chasing stories like a one-woman action movie. And honestly, I did get a taste of that life working with a YouTube news channel, juggling early mornings and late nights. It was messy, exciting, exhausting… and I loved it.

Then came the college placement drive.

My friends casually said: “Come along, girl. Just for fun.”
And we all know how “just for fun” usually ends: never harmless!

Suddenly, I’m sitting in front of an interview panel applying for a Business Manager role at an insurance company. A field I know absolutely nothing about.
If someone had asked me the difference between a premium and a policy at that moment, I probably would’ve Googled it under the table.

But somehow, round after round, I kept getting through.
Out of curiosity more than confidence, I told myself: “Let’s see how far this goes.”

Well… it went all the way.
They selected me.

The youngest in the batch.
No business degree.
No management background.
Not even a basic idea of corporate life.

So yes, technically I ‘chose’ this career but, honestly, it felt more like when something falls into your shopping cart and you just shrug and buy it.

Does life really follow our choices?
Maybe sometimes.
Other times it taps your shoulder and says: “I have different plans for you.”

And strangely enough, those unexpected detours?
They end up becoming the stories we tell years later, with a smile, a laugh, and a:“Well, who saw that coming?!”

© Prachi Verma, 2026

Connect with Prachi on Instagram: @__prachiverma__

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And finally, with it being International Women’s Day this past week, Afsana has taken the time to write this wonderful poem. I hope this lifts you, or inspires you to lift others.

Choices We Make – An Ode for International Women’s Day

O radiant woman – rise of every age,
Bright beacons blazing our life’s varied Stage –
On this glad day the watching world awakes
To weigh with wonder choices we all make.
For choice is seed, and soil, and sun, and rain;
From what we sow, we harvest loss or gain.

You are the quiet architects of Dawn,
Who stitch the night and urge the morning on;
Like Atlas – yet with gentler, steadier grace –
You bear the spinning sorrows of our race.
Not bound by myth, nor carved of stone above,
But flesh and fire, and face, unyielding love.

Mother, sister, daughter, steadfast wife –
Four simple names that shaped the course of life.
With careful hands and hearts that understand,
You build your homes as castles in the sand –
Not fragile towers doomed to wash away,
But fortresses that fortify the day.

With kindness – constant as the circling sea –
You cradle hope and lure possibility.
From cradle – song to final whispered breath,
You stand, serene, at thresholds birth and death.
Your love, a lantern lit in darkest weather;
Your words, like woven wool, bind wounds together.

O strength concealed in softness – sweet and stern –
A paradox the proudest powers learn:
For though the world may praise the sword and shield,
It is your patient pulse that wins the field.
The iron will, in velvet virtue dressed –
A quiet courage beating in your breast.

In halls of healing, steady, skilled, precise,
The surgeon’s hand is calm a sacrifice;
Where others falter, frightened by the sight,
You called through chaos, carrying the light.
Professional – proficient – poised in pain,
You mend the mortal map of loss and gain.

In court and classroom, Council, lab and farm,
In boardroom, bright up cradle infant arm,
You are the backbone – flexible yet strong –
The silent rhythm in society song.
Remove your voice – the harmony will fall;
Withdraw your work – the walls would crack and crumble.

How strange – how stark the irony we see:
The hands that rock the world still plead to be
Heard in its chambers, honoured in its laws –
Still striving for what simple justice draws.
Equality – no favour, gift, nor grace,
But rightful room in every human space.

So let this year resound with noble theme:
“Give to Gain” – not slogan, but supreme.
For when we give – our time, our trust, our voice –
We shape a fairer future by our choice.
As you have poured compassion without end,
So let our gratitude in action bend.

Let people, partners, Parliaments proclaim
Support in substance, not in speech alone.
Let the organisations open doors long sealed,
Let hidden talents flourish – fully revealed.
Give resources, respect, and rightful pay;
Give room to lead, to learn, to light the way.

For when women thrive, the world ascends;
When she advances, every boundary bends.
Like roots beneath the forest’s vast embrace,
Your growth gives strength and shelter to our race.
A rising tide – so sings the ancient phrase –
Lifts every life it lovingly upraises.

We thank you – not in token, but in truth;
Not mainly for endurance or for youth,
But for the fierce fidelity you show
To nurture justice when you see it grow.
For every sacrifice unseen, unknown –
For seeds of goodness deeply, deeply sown.

Let the gratitude and generous action stay.
Let us return, though small the gift may seem,
A portion of the power you redeem.
Visibility, advocacy, time –
Let equity be rhythm, not just rhyme.

O women – wellspring, wildfire, woven thread –
Buy you a futures formed and freely fed.
The choice before us shines, both clear and bright:
To stand in shadow – or to stand for right.
So hand in hand, in hope and high acclaim,
We honour you – and choose a fairer frame.

For history turns not to fate alone,
But on the seeds of justice, we have sown.
And when we give – as you have given long –
We write a wrong, and write a stronger song.

O women – wonder, wisdom, warmth untold –
More precious far than silver, stone, or gold –
Today we praise; tomorrow we remake
A world transformed by choices we all make.

© Dr Afsana Elanko, 2026

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