The Power of Choice
Within these past couple of months, I’ve seen my fair share of highs and lows. I’ve experienced a measure of success as an independently published author, and I’ve learned what it means to be a responsible adult on numerous levels I had never experienced prior six months ago. Being an adult and making adult decisions can be very stressful. Sometimes I feel like I haven’t completely crossed the threshold of adulthood and that I’m still holding on to childish tendencies and behaviors. My emotions are so jumbled and I’m constantly trying to strike a balance between my wants and needs. I’m learning how to deal with not being able to have things that I really want, and how to slow down in order to speed up. I’ve learn to pay more than the usual attention to small details that otherwise mean nothing to other people but most definitely have significant value to me and my life. To a certain extent, I’ve allowed myself to experience feelings I had never experienced before and even though it was kinda scary opening up to myself the way I did, in the end I feel doing that did more good than harm. Self-evaluation requires a person to be honest with themselves in order to identify flaws in their characters and to gauge their growth from where they were nine months ago to now, and to where they want to be six months in the future. Being able to openly express your deepest emotions to yourself in such a raw way will sometimes leave you feeling a tad bit tender in some areas. You become sensitive and defensive because emotionally, you’re open and exposed. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, right? Right. What good are disappointments if you don’t learn from them? How can you expect to grow in life if you don’t experience some sort of pain in one capacity or another, rather that’s heartache, disappointment, or even physical pain. The lessons that tend to stick with us the most are the ones that cause us to experience a certain amount of pain. “That’s the thing about pain, it demands to be felt.”- An Imperial Affliction With that being said, I’ve had to let go of a lot of things. I’ve had to let go of both emotions and things that I was attached to emotionally. I’ve come to the realization that there are certain people who I can’t physically be around because once I’m done being with them, I’m mentally drained from the lack of encouraging conversations held. Fairness is a noble idea to have. Yet, we are told that life isn’t fair. So then, does that mean we shouldn’t accept fairness as something attainable in this life time? Why do people accept the existence of such a thing as fairness, if they hold on to the philosophy that life isn’t fair. Is it to prove that life indeed isn’t fair, and that in a perfect world with perfect people, total fairness would exist? Even though we are able to understand an inkling of what fairness is and express and experience it as imperfect people living in an imperfect world, at one point in all of our lives, we have/will express and experience a measure of unfairness. So then, is it really fair to explicitly, without any filter at all to only see the faults in others, without giving them the relief of the benefit of the doubt? Why is it so hard for people to see the good in others and highlight those qualities? Why is it so hard for people to respect other people’s point of view? Why is your way the right way and my way wrong? What facts do you have that proves you are nothing but right? In my opinion, not being able to respect the perspective, opinion, and beliefs of others is a sign of arrogance. It isn’t necessary to accept a different point of view if you don’t want to, all I’m asking of you is to at least respect it. Thomas Edison, Nikolai Tesla, and Albert Einstein, all are considered scientific geniuses because they had a bright idea and acted on it despite what people said couldn’t be done. At one point in time, a phone call could only be made by using a cord bearing telephone. And somewhere down the line, someone thought it would be brilliant if people we’re able to communicate without being limited to the radius of a corded telephone. That idea sounded ludicrous to people who thought it couldn’t be done because they had never done it and believed that the only way for a phone call to be made, was with an electrical chord. Now look at how far we’ve come. Geniuses we’re always called crazy and stupid until they showed people what resulted from their “craziness” and “stupidity”. The title of this post is, “The Power of Choice.” I called it that because in the end, we all have the power to choose how we want our lives to play out and how we want our story to be told. Our decisions make us who we are. If I don’t stand for something, I’ll fall for anything. If I don’t choose, someone else will choose for me. That’s why I stand for the exchanging of ideas, personal development, growth, and individuality. Exercise your right to choose. It’s hard sometimes because we are constantly being bombarded with people’s ideas of what sort of person we should be. It can be frustrating and confusing. In the end it’s damaging to a person’s self-esteem if they are not allowed to exercise their right to choose. this results in regrets, which equals resentment, which equals, unhappiness, which equals rebelliousness, which equals pain. So, if you haven’t already, choose what you want to be because you have the power to choose. I choose to be happy because I have the power to choose.