This may seem excruciatingly obvious but just put it under your lid and let it bubble.
I’ve often thought that if I had made slightly different choices earlier in life, I might be a radically different person than I am today. You might say, “Well, duh!”
Every choice we make, whether good or bad, has brought us to be who we are at this moment. Even choices that might seem trivial, may have had a subtle yet significant effect on our path in life. When you really try to wrap your brain around all the “if’s” and “could have been’s”, the possibilities are staggering. So in the end, who we are is the sum product of every choice we have made. Is this fate? Is it the hand of destiny? I really don’t know for sure. Although life may throw us difficult circumstances or force us down a particular path, we ultimately choose who we are on this journey.
Just as we choose who we are, we also choose how we react to the varied situations in our lives. Obviously in may circumstances there is a natural and instant reaction, such as getting angry when you get punched in the face. Wanting to fight back would be a natural reaction. You might even be justified in doing so, but hat’s not the reaction I’m talking about.
What I’m getting at is the later reaction. What do you do a day, week, or month after getting punched in the face? What choice do you make? Do you hold a grudge against the person for the rest of your life? Do you seek revenge? Do you make peace, move on and not let the incident weigh you down? That might be an obtuse example but I think it gets my basic idea across.
Let me unpack that a bit more for you.
I’m sure every one has been a member of the “Low Motivation Club” at some point in their life. I’ve been there a few times myself. Its that state, where the motivation is lacking and I’m just generally nonplused. When I realize I’m in that kind of funk, I end up making a choice. I choose to stay in the funk or I choose to snap out of it – usually by doing the opposite of what I feel inclined to do. Its at that moment where the reaction migrates from the natural/unconscious level, to the realm where I choose how I will continue to react.
The point in starting this whole harangue is that I get extremely weary of people with an unwarranted or overblown victim mentality. People who don’t or won’t assume proper responsibility for their own actions and their reactions to the world. Constantly pointing the finger elsewhere, when it might be more productive to look inward.
It just irks me.
At some point in all of our reactions to the outside world, there is a moment where we choose the direction that reaction will continue to go. In the end we each choose how we react to the outside world…. the outside world does not dictate our reactions for us.
