Anthony Esolen on choice from 2004 (via Jeffrey Polet):

If you plan to be surprised, you will not be surprised. If you choose joy, it is not joy. If you plot out the turns of an adventure, you are on no adventure. Worse, you make it difficult for yourself to wake from your sleep and see that adventures are crouching out there to get you. A merchant does not buy a costly pearl and bury it in a field so that he may discover it. Not one of the prophets applied for the position. If you are going to be God’s delegate—and in some fashion we are all so called to be—then by definition the choice is not yours, nor will be the time and the manner and the means.