Choice

Once upon a time, you were born into a world full of discovery, creativity, and rapid/ongoing learning. At some point, you may have decided to ‘master’ at least one, two, or three aspects of life, and then concentrate on those areas. While it’s important to concentrate on your strengths, this doesn’t negate the importance of constant and ongoing discovery.

Each day, you wake up with an opportunity to discover. Each day you wake up with an opportunity to learn. Each day you have an opportunity to both thrive and expand.

You see, you get to choose.

You get to choose if you want to learn something new. You get to choose how you perceive the world, and if it’s boring and regular, or incredible and exciting. You get to choose what you do with your time, even when you feel stuck in a routine due to family and financial responsibilities. You get to choose, every step of the way.

It may not seem clear you get the choice, but you do. Even from a conversational standpoint, you get to choose how you feel, respond, act, and non-verbally gesture. At times, you won’t even realize you made the choice, because it may have been a choice you made earlier in life.

For example, you might snap at someone who speaks down to you. At first thought, this was an instinctive reaction, but that’s not exactly true. When you were a baby, you probably would have simply felt ‘icky’, started crying, and then moved onto another person who would have helped you feel better.

As an adult, it’s quite different. We might have learned that if we sulk, more nastiness comes our way. So, instead, we stand up for ourselves, snap, and make the other person want to go away. They no longer want to be around us, so problem solved, right?

Wrong.

Now you feel awful inside. The energy vibrating through your cells is toxic to your health, and you’re turning on all the wrong genes in your body through your misperception. Another way to perceive your situation would have been a learning opportunity. An example might be choosing to think:

“Geez. Seems like they’re having a bad day over there. And I don’t particularly like the feeling of being around them. Let me try to help them feel better, if it’s in their best interest. And if that doesn’t work, I suppose I’ll go on my way and let them cope until they’re ready to hang out again.”

Seems so simple, doesn’t it?

I think so. Once you understand you have a choice, it’s a matter of observing when you make a different choice, and then deciding how you want to act in the future. It’s a matter of sorting through what feeling inside of you triggered an unmatched emotion to the circumstance. It’s a matter of understanding the other person may not have had any idea you would feel this intensity of feeling, or they wouldn’t have done — or said — what they did.

And on the other side of things, why would you want others to act in accordance with your wishes, when your wishes are not theirs? In other words, if I’m to make choices to please you all the time, but I’m not personally fulfilled, am I truly serving either one of us in the end?

Let’s be more cognizant of our choices. Let’s understand the choices you make throughout the day are, in fact, choices. Let’s recognize you choose when to wake up, what to do next, and how to spend each day of your life, ultimately adding up to be your existence. Let’s remember you have a choice not only how to speak, but also what you think, and how to feel.

Today’s thought exercise: if everything is a choice and a belief, what choices do you wish to make, and what beliefs do you choose?

Personally, I love getting a choice. I choose to take responsibility for interactions that are not in alignment with my wishes, and I choose to do something to make them better. I believe in the concept of Heaven on Earth, and it’s my understanding, life experience, and belief that we can create any reality we want, if we wish for it, feel it, and believe in it enough.

Sent to you with love, honor, and in service,

Kareem

Originally published at drkareem.com on April 25, 2018.