The Butterfly Tattoo

and the Art of Unwanted Choices

We live inside choices we never really made.

The house was burning, and we picked a door—any door—because the only other option was smoke.

We say we chose the boy, the job, the life. But truthfully, we just learned to live inside what was left.

Chicken or Beef Teriyaki

You know that feeling—trapped by two options that are, at their core, the same shade of miserable. Like choosing between chicken teriyaki or beef teriyaki on an airplane when you’re allergic to soy. Or trying on shoes that are either a little too small or a little too big, but never quite right. These aren’t real choices. They’re negotiations with discomfort.

We’re all living some version of this. College majors picked out of fear, jobs accepted in survival mode, partners chosen to quiet loneliness, not ignite love. And yet, we stamp meaning onto the choices we make. We have to. It’s how we cope.

The Butterfly Compromise

So when someone asked what tattoo I’d get—if I had to—I said butterfly.

I hate tattoos.

The butterfly wasn’t a symbol of freedom or rebirth. It was a soft landing in a bad hypothetical. A gesture toward beauty in a conversation where I felt cornered.

We all do this.

Find a version of the butterfly. A story to wrap around the less-than-ideal, so it doesn’t suffocate us.

It’s why people get married at 25 even when unsure. Why they move to cities they hate because a better option never called back. Why they smile when asked if they love their job. “I mean, yeah—it’s not that bad.”

Your Ancestors Did This Too

Earlier today, a touch-screen prompt at a museum exhibit stopped me:

If you immigrated to this country in the 1800s, what job would you take?

Options: Policeman. Gardener. Miner. Factory worker.

No option for “Stay home.”

No one asked: Would you leave your home? Would you give up your name, your language, your mother’s food, for the chance to live in coal dust or on cabbage soup?

That’s how life works. The deeper questions stay buried. The real grief is invisible. We just circle A or B and pretend it’s free will.

The Power in Picking Anyway

Here’s what’s wild: even when the choices are awful, there’s still a kind of power in deciding. Maybe it’s not freedom, but it is authorship.

When you say butterfly, you’re still the one saying it.

You can turn a boxed-in moment into a story you own.

That’s how we survive: by finding softness in the steel trap. By naming things ourselves, even when someone else builds the cage.

Two Real Choices

When life corners you with bad options, there are really only two choices:

1. Accept what’s on the table. Make it beautiful if you can.

2. Escape the table entirely. Risk hunger. Chase something truer.

Both are valid.

Both require courage.

Tattooed by Life

Whether or not you ever get a tattoo, life marks you. With grief. With memory. With stories you didn’t ask for.

The butterfly might be compromise. But it’s also proof that you found one thing worth holding onto.

And sometimes, what you didn’t want becomes the symbol you needed. Because you kept going anyway.