“Our lives are the sum total of the choices we have made.” ~ Wayne Dyer
Today I was surfing Facebook and came across some old friends from high school. These are people I haven’t seen for years, since I decided to move away from where I grew up and spent all of my childhood in pursuit of my dreams. It made me think that everything in life just boils down to one simple thing:
Choices
I chose to move away and get out of the small town where I grew up and the small town mentality that came with it. It wasn’t for me. Was it right or wrong? Neither. Just different. It makes me a bit sad to think all of the people I spent so many years together with only to have a quasi-relationship with now because we are friends on Facebook (which is quite stupid when you think about it.)
Where I am going with all of this is that I “chose” to move into the cities and have chose all the decisions of my life which have led me to where I am today. We all have the ability to make choices – right or wrong, good or bad. We can choose mates, jobs, friends, where we live, our thoughts, diet, and just about anything, really.
Our choices make us who we are. For me, many of the choices that I made were not easy and came at a cost. Some choices in my life didn’t work out as well as I thought. Some really hurt years later. Others I would never trade for the world, and some juicy choices would make amazing stories that someday will be shared with the world.
When we wake up in the morning we all have the ability to do one thing: choose.
Choosing happiness, sadness, anger, love, regret, remorse or any decision that involves free will is the one differentiator that sets human beings apart from the rest of the animal kingdom.
I chose to take the harder path in life for sure. A constant, uphill, upstream battle. Why? I don’t know. To live life to its fullest, maybe? To be all that I can be? Probably because I felt deep down in my core that I wanted to do and be more.
All of the people I grew up with are still in the same town doing the same thing and hanging out with the same people. Good for them. It wasn’t for me. I chose to get more out of life. Have I gotten more? Who knows, too early to tell. Will I get more out of life? Who knows, that depends on my choices.
This small town guy who came from nothing has traveled the world, managed millions, had ups and downs in life most could never dream of, educated myself, mingled and became friends with some of the world’s most influential people, dated women so beautiful they would make you speechless, laughed, cried, loved, lost and truly lived. Yet I always know that when tomorrow comes I will have the ability to do that one simple thing: make choices that define who I am, and so do you.
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