Today I want to talk about Choice.
Choice is the fundamental ability we have to control our own lives. BUT many people choose to let others (in one way or another) control their life for them.
Why?
Because it’s easier, it requires less energy and effort, and it means they don’t really have to be responsible for what happens in their lives.
Responsibility over a life is a powerful thing. Not being a parent myself, I imagine this is something that impacts parents greatly.
But most people forget that they need to be responsible for their own lives too.
Because here is the thing, even if you are letting someone else dictate your life, YOU are responsible for that and all of the outcomes that fall out from that.
Ultimately we are the ones responsible for US (once we are old enough to comprehend this responsibility).
Now others might argue that there are things that happen TO us that we are not responsible for.
This is true.
If I am out walking through the local park in the middle of the night and I get mugged, I am not responsible for being mugged. That is a choice the attacker made.
BUT I am responsible for CHOOSING to walk through the park at night, for NOT CHOOSING to ask someone to accompany me, and so on.
There were choices I made that I have to take responsibility for which led to that event.
If we don’t take responsibility, we are likely to keep reliving bad events. If I take responsibility for being in the park at night, I can then say to myself “That was my choice and it was not a good one. next time I will choose to keep to well lit areas when I walk home at night” or whatever I decide.
Some might call this simply learning from our mistakes, and they may be true, but if we are going to learn from mistakes, we do have to admin that it was us who made that mistake in the first place.
This is what it means to take responsibility for your life.
It means being conscious of your choices and choosing the best you can with the knowledge you have, and owning up to your choices if they don’t work out.
A lot of people go through life with a “victim” mentality (“why does all this bad stuff keep happening to me”) and this is a choice as well.
Taking control of your life means that at some point you have to own up to the fact that you probably made some bad choices which lead to some of that bad stuff happening to you.
This also means you can then learn from that and start to make different choices that will (hopefully) lead to good stuff happening to you.
Choice is a powerful tool. Use it wisely.
For now, keep laughing (because that is a choice too).