A Matter of Choice

Did you ever stop to think for a minute about choices? The choices you make that impact your life, changing your pattern or course. The choices that others make that impact your life, changing your pattern or course. The list of various choices you make just to get up in the morning or order a cup of coffee. Life simply put in a series of choices.

Each morning, you make a least 10 choices before you leave the house.
Hit the snooze?
Shower?
Thong or full butt?
Pants or skirt?
Button down, sweater, polo?
Man’s fossil, swatch or ladies fossil?
Color of ladies fossil?
Bobbie pin?
Boots or heals?
Go back to bed?

You haven’t even left your bedroom yet!

Let’s talk about Starbucks; right, I know what you’re thinking, Tom Hanks went over this same topic in an email to Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail. It bears a big truth. Even the most indecisive person can feel extremely decisive with one cup of coffee. Everyone knows that Starbucks is not just a cup of coffee but a place where you have to understand the menu, the ordering lingo and make 5 decisions in 2.5 seconds. Grande, non-fat, sugar free, caramel, extra hot, no foam.

What about those choices that have a greater impact then the color watch you wear or the amount of foam in your morning latte? I’m talking about those decisions that in an instant can change your fate. Your college choice, your 1st through 50th job, buying, presenting and accepting a diamond ring, saying I do, picking a house…the list is endless. Each choice, in a specific and unique way, changes your course, modifies your end goal and impacts yourself and those around you. You have control over these choices. You are driving the bus. Don’t get me wrong, decisions like these require a multitude of thought and consideration, but it’s your course; change it as you see fit.

There are choices that you make with others; choices you have a fifty-fifty stake in. Honeymoon destination, Saturday night movie, bread of dog, name of child, number of children, color of the living room…also an endless list. Choices made in a partnership can also impact your course, but in an effort to comfort you, the choice impacts the other person’s course equally.

There are choices that others make that directly impact you; might not even impact them or to the same degree. My roommates’ parents chose what college she went to. This decision, I agree a sick injustice to my roommate, impacted her course in a far greater way than her parents. The start of her adult life was chosen by someone else, with what I believe was little consideration of her feelings in the matter. Not only did her parents make choices her whole life molding her into the person they expected, but also now, this choice, to some, the first choice a child makes thrusting them into adulthood, was made by someone else; someone with little stake in the outcome. It really only impacted her parent’s checkbook.

Lastly, there are choices that impact your course, modify your faith, where you aren’t even in the passenger seat. You may not even know the choice maker at all. These choices can have the greatest impact on your future.

Life is a series of choices, made by you and made by others; some you can control but the scariest are the ones you cannot.