The Power of Choice

With all that is out of our control, it is easy to step back and say that you are drifting with the tide and doing your best to stay afloat, to always be the victim, to always be fighting to stay on top. The tide takes us where it chooses and we just have no say in the matter. Everyone is out to get us and there is nothing we can do about it. Life stinks and stuff happens and poor me!

The fact is, life does happen and there is an awful lot that we have absolutely no control over. The one and only thing we can control is our attitude. We can choose how we will respond. We can choose how we will behave. We choose to overcome or to be overcome, to keep going or give up. We choose whether we allow negative influences from outside ourselves to destroy our mood or ruin our perspective. We choose to hold on to negative feelings, anger, frustration, fear, hate, bitterness or we choose to forgive, to love, to release, to let go. With all the things in life that we cannot control, why would we give up this bit of control that can vastly determine the quality of our lives?

It's really time we stop blaming our parents, our rough childhood, our teachers, our siblings, our spouses, our bosses, our government, our hometown, the gardener, the milkman and the paper boy for our behaviors. Everyone I know has some secret terrible event or some painful experience or lack of guidance, parenting, or caring that has helped to shape them in some way or other. However, we all have the choice to blame who we are on our past, on people or on present circumstances. We have the choice to play a passive role in our own lives rather than choosing to be in control.

We must stop these thoughts and behaviors and realize that we start fresh every day. Every morning that we wake up and take a breath, we have a chance to form a new life. God is giving us a new day and allowing us to choose each moment of that day what we will do, who we will touch, how we will live and behave. We can choose what steps we will take that day from simply choosing to start off our day thankfully, to our schedule, to our taking a deep, thoughtful breath before responding. We can choose to create instead of sitting passively blaming all external sources and refusing accountability. We have been blessed with minds that are able to dream. We have also been blessed in this country with the ability to follow those dreams and to make them a reality. It is in our hands. God did not create robots, but thinking, feeling, dreaming, choosing human beings. It is our choice what we do with our lives.

Let's choose more carefully! Let’s start choosing to create a happier environment, a richer experience, a healthier lifestyle and more loving relationships. Let's leave the past in the past. Let's choose to create our life instead of floating with the tide!

My pastor is fond of this saying, “We have never been given the power to do, but we have been given the power to choose. And what we choose determines what we will do.”

There are things outside our control in this life; things that will be pleasant and things that won't be. We owe every breath to God above. We cannot control the weather or the world events we watch on the news every evening. We cannot control the stock market or the economy. We cannot control life and death. We cannot control natural disasters or disease. Most importantly, we cannot control other people's choices!

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