Comparing Chuang Tzu's Independence And Before The Law

Throughout life people are required to make choices, however sometimes they are left thinking if the choices made were right. As individuals in society the choices a person make influence their entire lives and who they become as is the case in Chuang Tzu's “Independence” and Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law”. Sometimes people get caught up in whether or not the decisions made were right, so much so that it causes anxiety and for many to overthink. Life is not perfect and more often than not, people make the wrong choice, although in the end it should be for themselves and no one else. People tend to let the actions and thoughts of others control them. This is the case in “Before the Law” the narrator gets so caught up in what he should do that he sits and wastes his life away wondering what was behind the guarded door. The short story

While Chuang Tzu is fishing two high officials approach him and ask if he would like to be a part of Prince Chu’s administration, assisting him however in doing this Tzu would no longer be truly free and able to do what he wanted. He follows up their question "I have heard that in the State of Chu there is a sacred tortoise, which has been dead three thousand years, and which the prince keeps packed up in a box on the altar in his ancestral shrine. Now do you think that the tortoise would rather be dead and have its remains thus honored, or be alive and wagging its tail in the mud?" (Tzu) Asking this he metaphorically asks them whether or not they would rather be bogged down with a higher title and not being able to do what they truly wanted in life to which they both answer that they would much rather be free to do as they pleased like the turtle in the mud but ironically their choices are not their own because they serve Chu. The two officials are stuck with what is likely a lavish life but have traded it off for their