Decision Making In Night By Elie Wiesel

Do you ever look back and regret a decision you have made? Although reflecting on past decisions can be healthy and teaches you about yourself for the future, it can also cause you to feel an overwhelming sense of grief and regret. Knowing that your life could be different but it is the way it is because of something you decided is terrifying for almost anyone. However, you do not really know when you are making these choices that are pivotal points. In the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, the main character Eliezer found himself making huge life choices without even realizing it. Only looking back can one identify the exact moments when opportunities were missed. Whether you refer to them as coincidences or missed chances, they are still critical

Coincidence is often defined as, “the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection,” (Merriam-Webster). They seem to be related to missed opportunities due to the fact that they happen for a reason. There is significance to their occurrence. Coincidences may be a little bit more recognizable as they are happening, but they both times in life where you can look back and identify almost the exact moment it happened. One coincidence that occurred in with Eliezer was when he was separated from his mother and sisters to go off with his father, “‘Men to the left! Women to the right!’ Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother. There was no time to think, and I already felt my father’s hand press against mine: we were alone.” (page 29). He was young enough to go with his mother and sisters but that is not who he ended up with. He was sent off with his father so that he could take care of him. His mother and one of his sisters did not survive, and yet he did. Had he gone with them, he could have also been a silent victim of the Holocaust. Both he and his father experienced other tiny and yet significant coincidences, many of them being how close they could stay. For example, when they were being assigned jobs and commanding officers, he and his father ended up working for the same one. They were able to take care of each other and watch after one another. Based on the past evil nature of the officers at the concentration camps, it is quite the coincidence that they allowed them to stay