What About Wednesday: Choices

Once a week I ask the same bleary-eyed question: “What about Wednesday?”It’s my day to post whatever the hell I feel like, with no regard to fashion, eco-consciousness or, occasionally, even coherent thoughts.

I believe that who we are, and the way we’re measured, has everything to do with our choices.

At the core of our being, there is a kind of will that can overcome anything, if we choose to embrace it.  From the smallest irritants, like biting your nails, to the grand injustices we see in the countries around the world (including our own), there is always the option to act, to change, to decide.  Those decisions are what define us – not just the grand sweeping gestures, but the smallest, least consequential choices, too.  Who doesn’t have childhood memories of a choice hastily made?  Who doesn’t occasionally get nostalgic over that one teacher they should have stood their ground against?

I love watching these choices being made.  I fall in love – for just a moment – with the people making them.  The man who decides to have just one more cigarette even though he shouldn’t; the woman who buys the organic apricots even though she eats at McDonald’s twice a week; the child staring longingly at his sister’s toy…the one he should have picked.  I love that these people make choices, that they actively choose, every day, without blaming the world for their choices.

I invite every person – including myself – to be more cognizant of that.  Next time you have a choice, make it, consciously, without letting the external influences placate you.  Choose your lunch based on your what will make your body, mind and spirit happy, not what your media tells you has the right number of calories or whether your friends say ordering a salad means you’re giving in to societal standards.  Choose your clothes based on what you know to be true about the designer, the company and yourself, not what the tags say or whether it’s “in.”  Choose your life, your path, based on you, not someone else’s description of you.

Because after all of the external influences – the addictions, the upbringing, the genetics and the societal pressures – we can decide for ourselves how we’ll act and react to almost any situation.

We almost always have a choice.

Tags: choices, love, My Opinion, people

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