It’s your choice. The way you live your life, the friends you have, the spouse you chose, and the house in which you live – you chose them. You decided that your cute next-door-neighbor would make a great father to your future kids so you married him. You decided to be a pediatrician and saved and pushed yourself to finish medical school. Your wife decided the house you live in was too adorable to pass by, so you decided to go along with her choice. You were uninterested in signing up for a gym membership so, guess what, you choose to weigh just a little bit more than you ought to.
It’s important to remember that the sum of all your choices equals this: your life. Your life, as it is right now, is the sum result of all the choices that you’ve made since you were able to make choices.
Even when you don’t choose, you’ve made a choice. Deciding not to say anything when your co-worker gets rewarded for a project you spearheaded is a choice to not pursue the raise you should have gotten. Deciding to remain silent while your husband berates your child about his lack of homework skills is a choice to allow your husband’s parenting skills to trump yours (and possibly a choice to create an unmotivated child). Deciding to allow your boyfriend to choose where to eat every single time you go out is a choice that possibly allows him to be the dominant partner in your relationship.
Everything you do, everything you say and all the emotions you feel are choices. (It goes without saying that things done to you (abuse, neglect or acts of God) are not things that you ‘choose.’ ) I emphasize this because you will find that it’s very important to a) be account able for all the choices you make and b) make consistently good choices in your future. All you have is right now. The past is gone (and so are those decisions), so it’s time to move on and move forward. I don’t say that in a clichéd fashion – I say it because it is true. In order to move on and move forward you must choose to do so.
