Rent Boy is running. He’s sprinting down Princes Street in Edinburgh, a manic grin plastered across his face while Iggy Pop’s "Lust for Life" batters your eardrums with that iconic drum beat. Then comes the voiceover. You know the one. It starts with those three words that defined a generation of disaffection: Trainspotting choose a life.
Except, Mark Renton wasn't really telling you to go out and buy a washing machine. He was mocking the very idea of it. It’s kinda weird how a monologue about heroin addiction in mid-90s Scotland became the ultimate anti-establishment manifesto, but here we are, decades later, and people are still tattooing those lines on their arms.
The Irony of the Choose a Life Speech
Most people hear the "Choose a Life" speech and think it’s just a cool, edgy rant. It’s actually a brutal critique of consumerist culture. When Danny Boyle directed the film in 1996, based on Irvine Welsh’s 1993 novel, he wasn't just making a "drug movie." He was capturing a specific moment in British history where the post-Thatcher era met the empty promises of the looming "Cool Britannia."
Renton lists things: big televisions, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. It sounds ridiculous now—who cares about a tin opener?—but in the 90s, these were the markers of "making it." By choosing heroin, Renton and his "associates" (Sick Boy, Spud, and the terrifying Begbie) weren't just being self-destructive. They were opting out of a game they felt was rigged from the start. They chose something else. It was a miserable something else, sure, but it was theirs.
Honestly, the list is supposed to feel exhausting. It’s meant to make the "normal" life sound just as repetitive and soul-crushing as the cycle of scoring and crashing. When he says "Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home," he’s laying bare the inevitable conclusion of the suburban dream.
Why the 1996 Context Matters
You’ve gotta remember what was happening in the UK back then. The country was transitioning. The grit of the 80s was fading into the glossy, Britpop-fueled optimism of the late 90s. Trainspotting was the needle scratch at the party.
The movie didn't look like a gritty social realist drama, though. It looked like a music video. It had neon lights, high-speed editing, and a soundtrack that basically defined the era—Underworld, Primal Scream, Lou Reed. This "cool" aesthetic is exactly why the Trainspotting choose a life mantra took off. It packaged misery in a way that felt like a revolution.
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John Hodge, the screenwriter, took Welsh’s sprawling, phonetically written Scottish dialect and distilled it into these sharp, rhythmic bursts of dialogue. It’s poetic, in a filthy sort of way. Ewan McGregor delivered it with a smirk that made you want to join the chaos, even if you knew it ended in a "skag hole" in Leith.
The Contrast of the Sequel
When T2 Trainspotting came out in 2017, they updated the speech. It was a gamble. Usually, sequels ruin the magic. But seeing a middle-aged Renton deliver a new version of "Choose Life" in a high-end restaurant to a woman half his age was genuinely depressing in the right way.
He swapped "compact disc players" for "Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and hoping that someone, somewhere cares." It hit home because the "choices" had changed, but the emptiness remained. We went from choosing fixed-interest mortgage payments to choosing "zero-hour contracts" and " revenge porn." The core message didn't age a day; it just got a software update.
The Real-World Impact of the Aesthetic
The movie faced a massive amount of backlash. US Senator Bob Dole famously attacked the film for "glamorizing" drug use before he’d even seen it. Critics worried that the Trainspotting choose a life philosophy would lead to a surge in heroin use.
They missed the point.
The film is horrifying. Between the "Worst Toilet in Scotland" scene and the haunting imagery of the baby on the ceiling, nobody actually watched Trainspotting and thought, "Yeah, that looks like a great career path."
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What it did do was give a voice to a specific brand of nihilism. It acknowledged that for a lot of people, the "standard" life path wasn't just boring—it was inaccessible or undesirable.
- It influenced fashion (heroin chic, for better or worse).
- It changed how British films were marketed (the orange posters are legendary).
- It turned Edinburgh into a dark tourism destination.
Moving Beyond the Screen
If you’re looking at the Trainspotting choose a life ethos today, it’s worth asking what we’re actually choosing. We live in an era of "hustle culture" and "quiet quitting." Renton’s rant feels like the precursor to the modern burnout conversation.
We’re still choosing big televisions, though now they’re 4K OLEDs. We’re still choosing to look for "reasons" to be happy in the things we own.
The brilliance of Irvine Welsh’s writing is that he doesn't give you a moral out. He doesn't say "drugs are bad, go get a job." He says "everything is a choice, and most of them suck, so pick the one that lets you survive."
How to Apply the "Choose Life" Philosophy (Without the Chaos)
You don't need to be a nihilist in 90s Leith to take something away from this. The whole point of the rant is awareness. It’s about realizing when you’re on autopilot.
Audit your "choices."
Take a look at your daily routine. How much of it is stuff you actually want to do, and how much is just the "tin opener" of 2026? If you're doing things just because you're "supposed" to, you're living Renton's nightmare.
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Recognize the marketing.
The "Choose Life" campaign in the movie was actually based on a 1980s anti-drug PSA. The movie flipped it. Start looking at the slogans thrown at you daily. Are they helping you, or are they just trying to sell you a "leisurewear" set you don't need?
Accept the mess.
The characters in Trainspotting are failures by every societal metric. Yet, they are intensely human. There’s a freedom in admitting that you don't have it all figured out and that the "perfect life" is a marketing myth.
Find your "Lust for Life."
The song isn't about being happy. It’s about being alive. It’s raw and loud. Find the things that make you feel that way—without the self-destruction attached.
The legacy of Trainspotting choose a life isn't about the heroin. It’s about the terrifying realization that we are responsible for the lives we build, even if the materials we're given are junk. Renton eventually "chooses life" at the end of the first film—by betraying his friends and stealing their money. It’s not a clean victory. It’s messy, selfish, and real.
Stop looking for the perfect path. It doesn't exist. There is no "correct" way to exist in a world that is constantly trying to sell you a version of yourself. The only real choice is to be conscious of the game while you’re playing it.
Start by looking at your current trajectory. If you hate the "washing machine" you're currently paying off, maybe it's time to stop running down Princes Street and start walking in a direction you actually chose for yourself.