Just wondering…are you aware of the impact of your decisions?

Have you ever just stopped, sat back in a moment, still, looking around you, completely aware of every sensation, every particle that has manifested in front of you and inside of you and wondered how the hell you got there?

How did life get you to where you are? And in that moment realize for the first time that you are there solely because of decisions you have made. Decisions based on the knowledge and life experiences you had at the time, not because of those experiences but because of how you decided to interpret them.

I have decided to believe certain people and take on their beliefs, and sometimes I have decided to just make up my own mind. Any which way you look at it, we are where we are because of a decision. A decision to get up at 10:00 am instead of 9:00 am, on a particular day that meant you missed your bus, or started work late, how I interpreted those experiences and what decisions I made because of those experiences, and the ripple effect that wobbles on from there.

I’m not trying to describe ‘sliding doors’ type moments, rather an abrupt realization that I am solely responsible for my life. We all are. No matter what has happened in the past, my decision to interpret each and every moment in a certain way will, and has inevitably shaped all moments after that.

So it’s not just the decisions we make on a daily basis, it’s the decisions we make about each moment, event, person, occasion; judgments about everything that happens in our lives. Within each moment is a moment in which we think or interpret something. So what if we stopped thinking or interpreting. How would that change things, I wonder?

It’s rare that we sit still and absorb. Just be. Live in the moment, they say. But how many of us truly do that? Even those who are meditating or following Mr Tolle’s The Power of Now, have all made a decision to follow that and in those moments when we are trying to live in the now we are making decisions about how we are in fact living in the now. Are we doing it right, when are we going to do it, for how long? And even when we are in that moment we decide when we are going to stop living in that moment, so is it really achievable, sustainable.

I’m exhausted, aren’t you? I got here because of my decisions. Not because I was brought up a certain way or because something happened to me when I was 7 years old or any such thing. It’s my decision, so what happens for the rest of my life is also my decision — I plan to decide wisely.