Choices

We all have the power to make choices.  It is a part of our capability to reason.  Our ability to reason is what separates us from the animals.  The choices we make on a day to day basis can have a long lasting effect on the scope of our lives.  Just one choice can have a snow ball effect so extraordinary that it can propel us in a totally different direction. 

Sometimes these new choices can be for our betterment while at other times they can turn out for the worst.

The choices we make will not only change the course of our lives, they undoubtedly affect the lives of those around us.  Some of our choices have such a great impact on others that it can change the course of their life forever.

A drunk driver that chooses to get behind the wheel of a car is not thinking about getting into an accident.  They may just be thinking about getting home.  A friend I grew up with attended a birthday party of one of her other friends.  The next day she got a call that the friend was in a comma.  The night of her birthday, she had too much to drink and ran into the wall on the freeway.  She died a week later.  It was a horrendous tragedy.

While in high school, I was catching up with a friend I attended middle school with.  She told me that one of our classmates had been in a car accident.  The guys she was hanging out with were drinking.  She got in the back seat and put on her seat belt.  The driver ran into a brick wall.  The seat belt cut through her stomach and killed her, while both guys lived through the accident.  I can only imagine that the grief they bore because of their choice must have been unbearable.

It is your responsibility to make the proper choices for yourself and be mindful of how they can impinge on those around you.

The best way to understand the pertinence of your choices in life, as well as how others are affected is by using examples from others lives.  We can use others as examples to enlighten us, learn from their lessons, use their positive choices as a footstool and avoid their mistakes.

I have been enlightened by the choices of many people that I have encountered.  Both they’re mistakes and triumphs are essential life lessons that I have learned from, grown from, changed from and become empowered from.  

JOURNEY #4

1. Write down the circumstances you want to change, and then write down the top three things you must do in order to change your situations. 
2. Write out the steps it would take to change the situations and create a work plan.
3. Identify a hard choice you have been avoiding making.  Write down the fears and challenges that you have faced and that has hindered you from making the choice.  Weigh out the positives of making your choice versus the negatives of continuing on your path.
4. Write out the top five things you would like to change about your personality that would help you live your life more positively and write what you need to do to change those things.
5. Write yourself a letter of what you believe you deserve in your life that you don’t currently have today, i.e. more love, security, stability, career, etc.  What choices have you made that have prevented you from receiving those things? What choices must you make in order to make those things a reality? 
6. What choices have others made that have gotten them on a positive path that you can see yourself on?
7. What negative choices have others made that have gotten them on a negative path that you could possibly take?  What choices must you make to stay off that path?
8. When you see others making poor choices do you try and warn them?  Do you expect people to do the same for you?  Set up a partnership of accountability with someone you trust and who has your best interest at heart so the two of you can warn one another when you’re making bad choices.
9. What area are you working on improving?  Choose to not exhibit the negative behavior or habit today.  Take it one day at a time.  Each day you meet your goal reward yourself.  Each day you do not meet your goal, take something away that you really like.
10. For the next seven days, make a positive choice that you will work on and complete each day.  At the end of the seven days, journal about how those positive changes impacted your week.