Life Or Nothing

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. - Helen Keller

You have a choice. You constantly have choices. You may not think you do. You may have so many restrictions upon you that your only choice is your attitude. But you always have a choice. At least one. How will you see today? As a day of drudgery or one of adventure? Will you dare to live or will you merely exist? Will you choose to be defeated, or will you hold on?

You have a choice. And the most insidious, the sneakiest, the most wonderful thing about this is that you don’t have to change your life in order to make a different choice. You just have to change your living. And this choice is the most important choice, one that feeds or hinders all others. It is the one of attitude.

And if you play it right, if you do nothing differently except think, if you show outwardly nothing of the change of choice you’ve made inside yourself, then no one will know. Except you. They may suspect. But since you’re doing the same things as you did yesterday, how would they know? If you’re truly in so bad a situation (and some of you are) that you dare now smile if you’re not allowed, dare not frown when sad, dare not shed any tears or express an opinion, then keep it all inside you. Make your choice of attitude and realization, and change the way you live your life, even if you don’t change your life.

The realization is that you have a choice. Once you realize that, things get both a lot tougher and a lot easier. It’s tougher because now the control is in your hands, and you can’t blame someone else for it. It’s easier because now that you realize you have the control, you can make that choice. Do you look at life as a victim or a survivor? Do you see yourself as imprisoned, or merely biding your time here until you have somewhere else to go, someplace better? Do you see yourself as powerless or powerful? Are you the central character of your life, or have you given that role over to someone else?

And make no mistake, you are the one who makes that choice. Do your parents think the world of your little sister and nothing of you? So what? That’s their choice. Do not make their choice the center of your world. First, see yourself as wonderful and then find other people who share that opinion. Your parents can keep their opinion. You don’t have to agree or fight. Are you in an abusive relationship where the other person insists that you wait on them hand and foot, always taking them into consideration no matter what you do? You can still make the choice about how you think and whether or not you leave, and if so how. Suicide is unfortunately the choice that some abuse victims make, whether it be by knife, car accident, starvation, or refusing to see a doctor until they are too sick to be cured. Abuse survivors, on the other hand, do not choose suicide as how they will leave, if they choose to leave. They figure out a way to make it out with their bodies and more importantly their spirits intact.

Any other scenarios where you are not the central character of your life can pretty much be referred to those two cases. Annoying coworker who seems to get promotions and raises more often than you? See the first case. Annoying boss who thinks that work should be your life rather than your job? See the second case.

Realize you have the choice to make your life what you want, and then choose your attitude. With your attitude in place and consciously chosen, you can then create your life more easily, more readily, and more happily. Realize, choose, and give birth to your Future.