It's All About Choices

The seasons indicate that it's time to get into the holiday spirit. It seems futile some years, exciting others. Yet life marches on, holidays or not. We immerse ourselves daily in our jobs, family concerns, self-imposed busy-work, and crazy social schedules. We turn page after page of the family calendar securely magnetized to the refrigerator, checking for conflicts that exist, sometimes double-booking when we know better. We manage by using tools of modern times - multiple cell phones, multiple cars, and multiple emails now reside in our homes, and lives. We ask ourselves how we ever did without them. The answer is simple, but we choose not to listen to our inner voice.

Each task, and every decision that resides within each task, has profound effects on our lives. We cannot escape the fact that we are responsible for where we are today and what fills our waking moments. Others may influence us (if we allow it), they may even get in our way (if that's what we choose to perceive). Our actions and interactions with the world are ultimately decided by the choices we make along the way.

We decide to join the club. Not all members of the club are compatible with our ideals and personality. Conflict rears it's ugly head. We refuse to communicate with them. Our children go to school together. Will they remain good friends now? Can we ever be in a group with those other people again? Surely, we didn't start it . . . they did!

When we decided to join the club, the team, the task force, we also agree to take on everything that gathers in the wake of that decision. Even if we join because we felt obligated by the person asking, it is still our decision to make, and at the end of the day, we must own those results.

Now you may argue that there are forces and decisions made by others that are beyond our control. True. But how we respond to what comes our way and how we use the results of our decisions is nobody's responsibility but our own. Too often we are quick to point a finger, saying that this person or that group undermined our efforts. We slink away, justifying our anger and feeling of loss because they did this to us. They were too stupid to realize how smart we are. They are too rich, too poor, or too inexperienced to understand it all. But, in the final analysis, it all came about because we made the decision to join, to be a part of the inner workings and intertwined personalities. Now, we must own that decision. (Step one complete.)

Step two revolves around moving ahead, with the knowledge now firmly planted in our brains that we must be responsible for what we set in motion. We did make that decision that now effects our lives, our kids, our jobs. Nobody forced us into it. If we make a decision and then claim that we were pressured to do it, then we are not our own person. Yes, sometimes our jobs depend on give and take, or working for a boss who is less than noble in his/her dealings with employees. But, whatever we decide from moment to moment is solely our decision to make, then deal with the fallout, good or bad.

There is a third step to walking through our decision making processes. That is, learning to own what is ours and what is not, especially ownership of problems. Don't let someone else's problem become yours. Filter it carefully. We can offer advice to our spouse, children, parents, and friends. What they do with that advice is up to them. We might not like the decisions they make, but that choice is theirs to make, not ours. We do not own the outcome of their decisions. We might feel regret if we gave them poor advice. (Gasp, oh no, not us). But we can only embrace the decision we made to dispense advice, and our willingness to feel bad if they acted on it and had less than favorable results. We cannot own their decision to act on our words, even if they blame us for it.

Again, it's all about choices. We choose to take action, or not. By choosing inaction, we open the door for someone else control our lives. If we let others decide for us, then we must realize that it was initially our choice(s) that brought about the results we must deal with today. There was a quote I saw as a child on a poster - "Not to decide, is to decide." Most of life is about making decisions, small and large. Knowing that, it is impossible to ignore the fact that we are responsible for where we stand today. We turned left instead of right and avoided the fatal freeway pile-up. We joined corporation ABC instead of XYZ, and now our pension fund is missing and theirs is not. We gave up traveling overseas at age 18, and now we realize that it may never happen in our retirement.

We decided. The outcome may not always be what we want or expect, but it belongs to us. Decide to be who you were meant to be, or not. Embrace the results. Either way, you own it.