The Choice is Yours!

They say you only live once, so why not eat what you want, love who you want, etc.?  I used to think this way only to realize it was excusing behaviors and habits that did not serve me well.  If in fact we only live once, why would we want to live it suffering from consequences of the decisions we make?  Because the truth is, all our decisions have consequences which is a good reason not to throw out any guidelines and in fact, a great reason to create more.

The truth is guidelines are hard to live by, but discipline is good!! It can keep us from being in a place where our whims tend to want to take us.  There is this line of thinking that promotes carelessness and sporadic choices to suffice an impulsive behavior that we all know from experience, can get us into situations that make it hard to get out of if/when we choose, we may have made the wrong decision.

I am a firm believer in making the right choices.  I was not always this way, in fact I used to never give a lot of thought to things that I would do or say.  This included what I put into my body, who I let into my heart, and what took up space in my mind.  I was not consciously aware of the correlation between my decisions and the inefficiencies in my life whether it be how I looked/felt, my relationships, or social activities.  When I became chronically ill, it forced me to take a second look at myself and my choices; in people, in foods, in activities, in what I watched and what I listened to.  All these things play a role in who you are, how you feel and how you view yourself and the world.

The easy way is our first inclination.  We tend to veer towards guilty pleasures and desires of the flesh.  It truly pays to be mindful of our choices and really to consider consequences because that is an aspect of life that we cannot erase.  We are however given the opportunities and the tools needed to create our own happiness that is long lasting.  We can do this through forming good habits and realizing that everything is a choice and we are always faced with making ones that will help or hurt us.  The hard part is accountability for those choices.  We have no problem identifying what we are doing right but seem to always be wondering why things happen to us, instead of maybe seeing the cause and effect of what we do and say.

Now nobody is at all perfect, so of course we are never going to always make the best choices, but a fair, honest effort is going to make you feel good about most good decisions you make and make it easier to not be so hard on yourself for failed attempts, which can also include indulgences.  This is going to be different for different people also.  For chronically ill people like myself, we must be stricter, and we have learned through experience that everything we do, eat, etc., influences us.  Just enjoying one basket of fries and a soda can really cause mayhem for the next two days or so.  We want to be careful that we are not comparing ourselves to others as to what we should be able to and not to do.  This has been personally hard for me as I find myself just wanting to ‘live’ a little, but ultimately each time I pay dearly!

Time is a giver, not a taker as my Aunt says.  Use it to benefit your decision-making process and really weigh out the benefits and losses of your choices.  This can in fact help you to learn even more than mistakes can teach you.  It will help you gain wisdom and really set a pattern for how you make future decisions.  Don’t forget to reward yourself of course but be weary of glutton and indulging far too much.  It may feel good at that moment, as instant gratification will teach us, however it does not always have a positive effect in the afterthought, so to speak.   You are in control, and yes you only live once; so, make that life happy and healthy by using your power to choose, wisely!