Choosing The Best – Part 1

It’s easy enough to see that life is a series of choices, and that living successfully is largely a result of making the choices that will take you where you intend to go. Yet you can often become so overwhelmed with the consequences of your choices that you lose sight of the very process that brought about those consequences. As a result, you can fail to appreciate the very real power that you always have, no matter what the situation may be, to control and direct your life by the choices you make.

It can often seem that life is dictated by events over which you have no control and therefore that you have no choice in the matter. But even when something is beyond your control, still you always have the choice of how you respond to it, and that can make all the difference in the world.

To see life in terms of choices is to become empowered in a very real way. The alternative is to see yourself as a victim of circumstance, dependent on blind luck or on the pity of others, burdened by your needs and the unfairness of your situation, with no choices available to you. But the reality is that you always have a choice, and those who make good and positive and valuable things happen are those who understand the value of making choices. Those who achieve are those who frame their world in terms of choices.

Choices are powerful and valuable, yet they do have a price, and the price is responsibility. That’s one reason people are so often reluctant to acknowledge that they have a choice — because they know that by accepting that choice they are also accepting responsibility. Sometimes it seems easier just to ignore the choices, avoid the responsibility, and let yourself be tossed around by the circumstances of the moment. But choosing not to make a choice is itself a choice, and usually one which you will eventually regret. You cannot really run away from responsibility, as daunting as it may be. You can only choose to ignore it, and by so doing you practically guarantee that your choice will work against you.

Look around you, and you will see quite clearly the life you have chosen. That statement may sound cruel and unfair, particularly if life has dealt you some difficult blows. After all, no one, for example, chooses to be born to an abusive parent. Usually no one chooses to be laid off from a good job. No one chooses to contract a debilitating illness. Few people ever willingly choose to bring any kind of difficulty on themselves. Yet everyone experiences difficulties and challenges. The power of choice comes in the way you respond to those difficulties, in the way you meet those challenges. By stepping up and making intentional choices, you can determine whether the difficult circumstances bring you down or whether they give you a reason to push positively forward.
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