Choose What is Right, Not What is Easy
When I graduated from high school, I found it hard to imagine that all that much would change. Until that point, I had been under the impression that as we gained more personal responsibility, things, in general, would get easier.
- No longer would I have to ask my parent’s permission to buy an extravagant gift for myself.
- No longer would I be given a curfew that I was supposed to adhere to.
- No longer was I forced to eat my vegetables before I could eat dessert.
…you know…the important choices in life.
Now, I was free to make all those decisions for myself. I was the one that chose what was “right or wrong” in MY life.
How naive….
Luckily, my parents didn’t exercise control over me with an intense suffocating grasp — unlike many of my friends. Therefore, my first experience with “True Freedom” wasn’t a classic landslide of poor choices…though I had my moments.
Instead, my biggest lapse in judgement came in the second semester of my Freshman year. On the first day of sociology our syllabus outlined all of the projects, tests, quizzes, and homework we would receive. However, I noticed that a majority of our grade hinged on three major projects.
Now, being a new adult and able to make my own decisions I chose to push the projects off.
Days past, then weeks, and then months — without a single thought given to any of the three projects. After so much time had passed already, it was clear that my decision had been to disregard the assignments and procrastinate until the last minute…
Unfortunately, I didn’t realize my poor choice until five days before the end of my semester. So, I did what any good college kid would do in that situation — I worked for three straight days to complete all three month-long projects. Finishing one project per day.
Even now, I can’t tell you how I pulled that off…it was nothing short of a miracle. I turned those projects in on the last day of class and received a 96%.
I was thrilled, but I learned a critical lesson.
“With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility.”
The Power of Decisions
As described perfectly in Seth’s Blog, The Spider-man Paradox, the famous line given by Ben Parker to Peter Parker (aka. Spider-man) teaches a critical lesson.
“With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility.”
Having the power to choose comes with a great deal of responsibility. This is not evident to new adults because they haven’t yet experienced the consequences of their own actions. Before then, everything was usually someone else’s responsibility, for example their parents had to worry about whether or not their kid would make it to school on time.
However, when we make that transition from kid to adult, whenever it happens, things become OUR responsibility. It is up to us to change our situation for the better or for the worse. The power falls to us and as a result more responsibility is demanded of us.
The Struggle to Do What Is Right
This brings us to the real point underlining the famous line, “With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility.”
Once we learn that we have the power to choose, we then have to learn how to choose what is right, not what is easy.
Prominent examples are found in the many moral decisions we face over our lifetime. However, the most common situations are less life altering and are usually found in our own personal lives.
- Maybe it is deciding that spending more time with your family is more important that pursuing the next promotion at all costs.
- Maybe it is sacrificing your time by working on a co-worker’s project late into the night to make sure their presentation the next day runs smoothly.
- Maybe it is spending time developing a side business so that you can eventually send your kids to the college of their dreams.
- Maybe it is simply choosing whether to make eating healthy and exercise a priority in your life.
Although not always life-threatening or life-altering, our decisions will not always come easily to us.
We will be challenged to choose the right thing, rather than the easy one.
Striving to become the Best-Version-of-Yourself is often a difficult road. There’s no doubt about it.
However, being committed to making the right choice when everything or everyone seems to be pushing you the wrong way will define who you are.
Every choice we make can be either “right or wrong.”
But, it is up for us to decide which we will choose.
“With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility [and with Great Responsibility, comes Tough Choices]”
Originally published at freedomsreach.com on February 18, 2019.
