It’s Your Choice

How do you choose to live your life? In this post from Lou Tice at the Winners Circle he reminds us that it is our choice to make — whether we’ll choose to live our lives in a positive or a negative manner.

If I asked you to tell me what makes life worth living — in a single word — what would your answer be?

During a break at one of my seminars recently, we were having a conversation about what makes life worth living. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that what makes life worth living can be summed up in a single word. That word is — “You!”

Here is what I mean. Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote about a summer day during his childhood when his mother sent him out to pick a quart of raspberries. “I dragged my feet in rebellion,” he said, “and the can was filling very slowly. Then a new idea came to me. Wouldn’t it be fun to pick two quarts of raspberries and surprise her!”

“I had such an interesting time picking those two quarts, to the utter amazement of the household, and they never forgot it. But, I have often forgotten the philosophy of it. We can change any situation by changing our attitude toward it. Nobody ever finds life worth living. One always has to make it worth living.”

See what I mean? The kind of life you have is a choice you make, every single day. You can choose to live a rich, meaningful, joyous life with ever higher goals. Or, you can choose to drag your feet in resistance and rebellion.

Which makes more sense? And what is your choice going to be?

Lou Tice
The Pacific Institute

I hadn’t really thought of this in this particular way before. And I’m not sure that I would agree totally with what Lou Tice says regarding us being able to choose. Going back to the post I made on Sunday; when I was at my worst with the depression, I don’t think I had much real ‘choice’ in the matter, although an element of choice may have helped me get to where I was. But I think ‘choice’ plays a part in keeping me away from that pit now; I don’t have much of a choice as far as my ongoing health issues are concerned, but I choose not to make those steps that would take me over the edge — even though sometimes that might feel like the harder option.

But I can think back in my life to times when the choices I’ve made have really affected my attitude, and consequently how much I’ve enjoyed life. Sometimes very similar to Harry Fosdick’s situation, when, in my working life, I’ve done some pretty uninspiring jobs, and been able to derive a surprising amount of pleasure from them.

Now, I guess the question is, can I apply the positive aspects that choice can bring to the negative aspects of living with a chronic illness? And I think the answer to that is, ‘yes’. The area I think choice can have a real effect for me, is acceptance. I choose not to take those steps that will send me back over the edge into the pit of depression, but I also choose to get cross and frustrated with myself because of the limitations my health puts on me. If I could learn to choose to accept those limitations better, the other choices would come easier.

Mmmm, a great deal of food-for-thought in this post from Lou Tice at the Winners Circle, as is so often the case. Don’t forget, if you’d like the daily emails yourself, you can subscribe without cost.