Make the Choice you Have

I have spent most of my life saying things like “if only ___fill in the blank_________ then I could _____fill in the blank___ .   We often try to see our life as we think it should be and not as it actually is.  The problem with constantly looking at our lives in this way is that we never truly face the reality of what our life actually is.  It is not very exciting and romantic to see our lives this way but it makes it very difficult for us to make excuses.  I will give you an example.  We have recently experienced a terrific strain on our finances, and I found myself making excuses for why I could not do anything about it… I kept looking into the future saying ” When I get the money then I will pay off these bills that are putting so much pressure on me.”  Not a bad sentiment really but I suddenly saw myself in a year saying the same thing..and still under the thumb of these credit cards!  I realized that it is easy for me to put off making sacrifices when I can push them into future indefinitely.  And the thought came to my mind,  why don’t you make the choices you have now… not the ones you think you will have in the future. The more I thought about it the more I realized how I could completely avoid living my life and just make excuses for the rest of my life because I never had the choices that I thought I should have.  Ultimately I decided to pay off my bills quickly and  I have to make some big sacrifices and rent a much smaller place and put some of my dreams on hold for a while… but it was the right choice to make… because it was MY choice!  It was immediately liberating  and exciting because just by making that simple choice I am living MY LIFE again!  I see people every day that make excuses for why they don’t do things differently and ultimately it comes down to the simple fact that most of them just don’t want to make the sacrifices required to do things differently… so just by making the decision that it IS worth the sacrifice, and following through-  my life will change and theirs will remain the same…

It’s simple really… if you have the choice of  red or black licorice whips common sense tells you that you cannot choose blue licorice whips!  chocolate and bubble gum are pretty much out too…   even if the guy right next to you has the choice of chocolate or bubblegum  you still do not have that choice available to you… now once you have made your choice and he has made his… maybe you can trade with him… but only if he wants to.  So don’t try to Make the choices that you don’t have …   Make the choices you have.