Hi Gillian,
I’ve been reflecting on the “choice” sentences we were asked to write for the exercise in 3.6. I realise that my degree of belief in my free choice varies depending on what the sentence is. For example, I choose to write:
I’ve got to lose weight because I look awful. 8
I can stay this weight, or gain even more weight, and continue to look awful. 2
Whereas if I wrote:
I’ve got to control my eating and eat smaller meals
vs
I don’t have to control my eating and I can pig out all day long for the rest of my life if I want to
then the numbers would change a lot! It would probably be around 5 and 5. So, it really depends on what the exact prohibitive sentence is about. If it’s about my appearance, that just has more emotional impact and it’s a lot harder for me to accept that I can freely choose to look awful.
Nicola