It is a very quiet Sunday
night, and I am lying in bed. Emma is asleep in her room (FINALLY!) and Doug is
just beginning to fall into his slumber. My bedroom is only lit by the glow of
the television and then I begin to wonder.... Just before I fall asleep is when I get some of my most deep and intimate thoughts. This is the space in time when I cannot hide from my thoughts, and begin to wonder about all the things in life that I can avoid during the course of the day. I began to think about how I can maintain a high level of positive influence and direction in my daughter, Emma's, life. As I began to think about Emma's life and her future, I also began to reflect on the direction and choices of my own life.
Within our family I found
that we have a strong foundation in faith and connectedness.
That connectedness and faith created a foundation in strong decision making, especially
in times of great need. Once I started down this path, my thoughts, drove me into another corner of my mind
and I began to wonder how I got where I am today. I could have easily ended up with a completely different life... This is where I began to
really mediate on decision-making in our lives. Life is all about
choices from the moment were born, and taught by the people in our lives to
make decisions, until the moment of our last breath.
Choices to act or not to act - choices to speak or not to speak - all of the decisions we make or actively avoided; because even not deciding is still deciding.
In life we all have choices, it
is truly those choices that determine the entirety of our lives. Now for some
reason or another, we as a culture have come to the very unreal and very untrue
conclusion that these choices are these major events that we can forecast with
a high level of accuracy. When in reality choices/decisions are made on a daily
basis in an instant. The daily life choices that we
make, which I believe are rooted in the very moral foundation and fiber of the
individual (very much a learned or taught skill), determine the course of our
day and the life progress we make as an individual.
A person’s ability to choose how
to react to news and events that “did not fit” their plans or life story up
until that point, tells us a lot about one’s ability to deal with stressful and
uncertain situations. I hold it true that practice makes perfect, in every
aspect of life. When we are taught at a young age to build a foundation that
is strong in good decision making, that learned skill will eventually, and very
eloquently, blend itself into our conscious decision making during high stress
and unpredictable situations. The other side of the conversation is
when we as individual do not develop a strong decision making foundation at a young age; that too blends into our ability to make sound and rational decisions in high stress and
unpredictable situations.
We
must get to a point where we are accountable, as individuals, to our own
decision making. At the end of this life, I believe that
one day, I will have to answer to everything I did or did not do. The only
person that will be capable, at that point in time, to take accountability for
my actions, or my inactions, will be myself.
Always,
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