Crossroads?

Every once in a lifetime, and certainly when you least expect or want it, you find yourself at crossroads. There are multiple ways to choose from, different journeys harking you, treads leading to various destinations or none, and you find yourself stalled, a little taken aback, confused, perhaps, at what way to choose, which road to take, what to expect, and what not to fear.


My question is - what makes us decide on the path we eventually choose for ourselves. Is it our nature, our so called personality, our take on life or maybe our approach to life at that particular point in time that makes us take one road over the other? Or is it the force of circumstance, the time frame we find ourselves in when we come to that crossroad determines our choice? Or, it is not that, it is simply a matter of one over the other without deliberation and thought? Is it just our feelings and emotions at that instant or prior to the choice that governs the choice?


I am told our choices make us who we are and what we become and what kind of life we end up leading. Is that true? Or is it the other way around? Is it our life, our beings, our natural leanings that bends us towards one choice over the other? I think the matter of determinism and free-will is an endless debate, and my intention here is not to go into that argument - I just want to know how people like us, how I, how you, how we decide what to do when we are faced with a plethora of choices, all equally alluring and all equally mystifying?