Choices that we make determine who we become, how we live, and how we feel. Choices are how humans are different from animals, humans have the ability to reason and to make decisions based upon that reasoning. A person's ability to reason relates to their ability to make good choices in life. People who can look at a situation and decide the best course of action based upon the given information are good decision makers. In the "Scarlet Letter", there are many characters that do not make good decisions and have to live with the consequences. .
The choices that we make determine what we become, as a person, and how our lives are conducted. In the novel "The Scarlet letter" Hester makes the decision to commit adultery and she is now thought of, by the entire community, as an adulterer, which she is. She could have chosen to not commit that act but she did and now she is looked down upon by the community. She has become the choice that she made, she committed adultery and she is an adulterer. Hester now continues to live in the village that she has always lived in and she is thought less of by the others in the community. She lives in a constant state of humiliation. Everyone in the village knows she committed adultery and she has to always live with the humiliation that comes with that. Her life revolves around the humiliation that accompanies the choice that she made earlier. Decisions are the only variable in a persons life, every single other aspect of one's life is a constant. By making good or bad decisions a person can live a good or bad life. .
Making choices will determine how a person feels emotionally as well. Hester made the decision to stay in the same village even after she committed adultery and she faces more guilt because of that decision. If Hester would have left the village, she could now feel less guilty, because nobody in the new village would know her. Emotional guilt is the worst kind of punishment that a person can receive, if someone feels guilty about something it will tear him or her up inside.