In prison, you hear a lot of phrases get tossed around like they’re simple truths. One of them is, “You made your choices.” It’s usually said flat, without emotion, like a closed door. I used to nod along when I heard it, even agreed with it on the surface. But after sitting with my own story long enough after watching other men wrestle with theirs I’ve learned that sentence hides more complexity than most people are willing to face.
Yes, we make choices. I won’t run from that. I’m sitting on this bunk because of decisions I made. But what people don’t understand is how narrow those moments can be, how fast they close in on you, how survival rewrites the rules before you even realize it’s happening.
Three years ago, I didn’t picture myself being called “inmate.” That word does something to you. It shrinks your identity down to a label stamped on paperwork. You stop being a father, a son, a man with history and intention. You become a case number. And once you’re here, everyone assumes your story fits neatly into a box: bad choice, bad outcome, end of discussion.
Life doesn’t work like that.
When Decisions Are Made Under Pressure
People love to talk about right and wrong like they’re clear lines painted on the ground. They aren’t at least not when fear is in the room. When violence enters your life, logic doesn’t get a seat at the table. Instinct does.
In moments of danger, you’re not thinking about courtrooms or statutes. You’re not thinking about how something will look months or years down the line. You’re thinking about staying alive. You’re thinking about protecting the people who depend on you. You’re thinking about getting out of the moment with a heartbeat still in your chest.
That’s not philosophy. That’s survival.
And survival has consequences.
I’ve seen men in here who didn’t wake up planning to ruin their lives. They woke up trying to make it through the day. A confrontation escalated. Fear took the wheel. Force entered the picture. And suddenly the roles flipped defender becomes offender, threat becomes victim. The system doesn’t pause to unpack panic. It doesn’t weigh adrenaline or terror. It measures damage and applies punishment.
I understand why the law works that way. But understanding it doesn’t make it just.
Watching This Truth Play Out Up Close
One of the hardest parts of prison is listening to stories that sound too familiar. There’s a man I lived near on the tier who changed how I think about responsibility and intent. He wasn’t loud. Didn’t posture. Kept his head down, did his job, stayed in his lane.
Over time, pieces of his story came out. He had a family. Kids who depended on him. A home that wasn’t always safe. Violence had been part of his environment for years. Not because he wanted it but because it found him.
One night, things went too far. He believed, in that moment, that if he didn’t act, someone he loved would get seriously hurt or worse. He didn’t act out of rage. He acted out of fear and obligation. The situation spiraled faster than he could control.
Now he’s here.
He doesn’t deny the outcome. He doesn’t pretend no one got hurt. But he also doesn’t deny why he acted. He carries both truths at once: responsibility for what happened, and clarity about why he did it.
That balance is heavy. He prays. He works. He reads. He doesn’t excuse himself but he also doesn’t hate himself. Watching that taught me something important: accountability doesn’t require self-destruction.
Prison Has a Way of Slowing Time
There’s a moment every day that sticks with me. It’s when count clears at night. The noise dies down. Everyone’s in their assigned space. I sit on my bunk, folding my state issued shirt the same way every time, even though it’ll be unfolded again in the morning.
That routine became a metaphor for me.
You can’t change the fabric. You can’t change the color. You can’t change the fact that it belongs to the state. But you can decide how you handle it. Careless or deliberate. Angry or focused. Resentful or disciplined.
That’s what choice looks like now.
Not the dramatic, life altering decisions people imagine but the small ones. How you speak. How you react. Whether you let bitterness run your days or refuse to feed it.
The Trap of Hindsight
Prison gives you hindsight in bulk. You replay moments over and over, dissecting them like evidence. What if I’d walked away? What if I’d waited? What if I’d trusted someone else instead of handling it myself?
Hindsight makes everything feel obvious. But that clarity didn’t exist when it mattered most.
From the outside, people judge with calm minds and safe distance. From the inside of a crisis, everything is loud, fast, and incomplete. Anyone who says they know exactly what they’d do has never been tested the way some situations test you.
That doesn’t mean actions don’t matter. They do. Lives are altered permanently. Families pay prices they didn’t agree to. I won’t minimize that.
But judgment without context isn’t wisdom it’s convenience.
Owning What I Can, Releasing What I Can’t
Here’s the truth I had to accept: I can’t rewrite my past. I can’t reframe it into something prettier. I can’t undo harm or erase consequences.
What I can do is decide who I am now.
Acceptance doesn’t mean agreement. It means acknowledging reality and choosing to move forward with some integrity left intact. I’ve learned to sit with the discomfort of holding two things at once: regret for how things ended, and understanding of how they began.
That’s not weakness. That’s maturity.
A Message to My Children
If my kids ever read this, I want them to know something clearly your father isn’t defined by one moment. I am responsible for my actions, but I am more than my worst day.
I want them to grow up knowing that courage isn’t about being fearless it’s about acting with intention, even when the outcome scares you. I want them to know that protecting what matters sometimes comes at a cost, and that cost should never be chosen lightly.
Most of all, I want them to understand that they are never required to surrender their values just to survive. There are ways to be strong without becoming reckless. Learn them sooner than I did.
A Word to Other Men Rebuilding
If you’re reading this from a cell, a program, or a place where life is forcing you to slow down hear me.
You don’t have to let one decision define the rest of your life.
You don’t have to drown in guilt to prove accountability.
You don’t have to harden your heart to survive.
Learn from the fire, but don’t live in it.
Control what’s in your reach. Own your story without glamorizing it or burying it. Build discipline where chaos used to live. That’s how you take your power back quietly, consistently.
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Redefining What Choice Really Means
People say, “The choice is yours,” like it’s always clean and fair. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes there are no good options only necessary ones. Survival forces decisions that echo longer than anyone expects.
But even then, there’s still one choice that remains.
You can choose how you carry what happened.
You can choose whether it hardens you or humbles you.
You can choose whether your past becomes a warning sign or a foundation.
That choice still belongs to us.
And it might be the only one that truly matters.
Read More: 7 Lessons Prison Taught Me About Being Enough Without Applause
