Choose Your Adventure
When I was little, we had “choose your adventure” books. You’d read a portion of the story and get to a point where you had to make a decision about the story which would send you to a certain page number where you would continue reading. And this would just repeat itself. There were so many different stories hidden within the pages of one bound book.
As I reflected on the past month, year, decade it struck me just how my reactions to the unexpected situations that arise have forged my present and will continue to dictate my future. What many people don’t understand is that you can control your thoughts. You can control your emotions. You can control how you react to a situation. In fact, instead of reacting to a situation, you can control how you respond to a situation. Big difference there. Reaction is the gut or instinct on how to act. I don’t know about you, but my gut reaction is generally with anger and judgement; it’s rarely ever good. When I respond, it means I’ve given myself a chance to calm down from that initial gut reaction and actually think about the situation. You give yourself time to work through the emotions so you can truly think.
I could have lost it on Son #1 when he crashed his car. I could have lectured about the importance of driving safely in the fog. I could have told Son #2 that he needs to pay better attention. I could have lectured him on not having ridden so far and pushing himself so hard. I could have, but I didn’t. Why? Because I took a breath when I wanted to say those things (react) and realized what was most important (respond): my relationship with each of my sweet sons. Had I lectured, I would have cut one of the ties between us; I would have loosened that bond. Truth is, they didn’t need a lecture. They already knew everything I would have said. They already knew what they had lost. They didn’t need to hear it from me; I would have only made them feel worse. Instead, I chose to I love them through these tough times ahead of them. And in doing so, made those ties tighter, our bond stronger.
You have a choice. You always do. It might be hard to see at times, but you have a choice. And you have to decide what is most important to you and act according to that. And then evaluate: is that choice taking you to who you want to be in your life?
