I love to read. I always have. I get excited by learning something new. It’s just me. It made me feel that I was changing and growing.
What I came to realize was that reading was not very powerful in changing my life. My life was still the same. Only different choices began to change my life. Both personally and professionally. Who I cared about. What I cared about. What I focused on. Who I spent time with. What I spent time on. What I chose to do or not to do.
Choice is the most powerful differentiator in our lives.
Do I choose to love my wife even more today? Exercise today? Spend more time with my children today? Do I choose to love God for His presence instead of my selfishness? End something today? Work today or play? Spend today or save? Engage or withdraw? Criticize or cooperate? Begin or just wait? Do I doubt or believe? Accept or change?
Choosing is the first step needed to change our lives.
The opposite of choice is “to wander”. When we choose “nothing” and simply let things happen. While wandering, we may experience lots of new things. But we rarely learn or benefit from them because we have made no choices that would help us judge their value.
You have to make choices to bring meaning to your life.
You have to make choices to bring direction to your life.
There is no other way. Life with meaning and direction doesn’t just happen. We must choose to love. We must choose to engage. We must choose to forgive. We may choose to be thin. We may choose to sell more. (Yes, some things are more important than others.) Choices force us to choose WHAT WE WANT to be important in our lives.
Choice sharpens, exposes and tests us. Choice teaches us both the boundaries of our lives and the richness of its depth. Choice exposes us to the intensity of pain, love, life and struggle.
Choices can be painful. Choice limits us by narrowing our options.
Something will end. For better or for worse. (And that is ok!)
Our choices may confuse others. Our choices may, at times, confuse us as well.
Be confident in your choices, though, for time will always bring us clarity as to their value. And it’s ok that we are not always going to choose well. It’s simply part of the journey.