The above statement is, indubitably, true. Life is based upon an individual's choices; upon their concept of the world. Beginning with the time of birth to the time of death, everyone spends every minute in life making a choice about one thing or another. One could imagine life as a long, winding road with infinite roads branching off in infinite directions. Robert Frost wrote in The Road Not Taken, 'I took the one less travelled by. And that has made all the difference.'

Allen Jesson described it best in his poem Change, saying 'When the world is changing, why should people say the same?' He depicts life as a wave we can not possibly hope to stop. We must learn to go with the flow because 'those who won't move forward, will perish and are surely doomed.' Sure, we may get hurt along the way, but, if we do not continually strive towards perfection, we may as well lay ourselves in the ground.

Through greater knowledge and understanding of our world, its people and how it works, people's perceptions have changed. We have moved away from the predominant 'herd mentality', brought about by the subjugation and manipulation of government and religious gro

Since the day we are born, we are bombarded and besieged with information from television, radio, books and magazines. The world is awash with a vast amount of information and each individual is responsible for obtaining, understanding, and making value judgements on this information.

Again in the Vietnam War the Australian government, using propaganda, put to referendum, and finally attained, conscription for military service overseas. However, the people, when they discovered the truth with regard to the war, protested that decision until it was abolished. This protesting, made possible by free will, was largely not available to us before the twentieth century as was proven by the Eureka Stockade and religious oppression in the early days of Australia.

The changing pattern of choice in the last century has been influenced mainly by our technological progress, which has made our lives easier and brought, through advanced communication and globilisation, awareness of other choices we may make. We are not stifled by economic disadvantage or bound by an oppressive government, we are free to choose our own religion, and we are blessed with a myriad of conveniences by our technologically advanced society. Probably the greatest recent development has been that of democracy. This relatively new form of government has brought about many new concepts, most importantly a great inclination towards free will, which is, literally, freedom of choice. On account of this newfound free will we, as individuals, are able to form our own choices, just as our choices form who we are.

In the fictional text Maestro, by Peter Goldsworthy, one of the main themes is the maturatio

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Approximate Word count = 1127
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)