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Full Idea
In making a choice, it is not so much a question of choosing the right way as of the energy, the earnestness, and the pathos with which one chooses.
Gist of Idea
What matters is not right choice, but energy, earnestness and pathos in the choosing
Source
Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], p.106), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Phenomenology'
Book Ref
Aho,Kevin: 'Existentialism: an introduction' [Polity 2014], p.32
A Reaction
I'm struggling to identify with the experience he is describing. I can't imagine a more quintessentially existentialist remark than this. Reference to 'energy' in choosing strikes me as very romantic. Is 'the way not taken' crucial (in 'pathos')?