Choices

Photo by Felix Russell-Saw on Unsplash

Today was hard.  It was hard to sit at this computer and stare at a blank page and to watch the hours tick by while that same page stubbornly refused to fill itself with words. Sometimes you don't have much to say.  Sometimes you just don't have anything to say.

Nevertheless I moved my fingers across this keyboard, filling up this space with something. I'm writing, even it's nothing, because I made a choice.

Sometimes it comes down to pure choice.

In life we run into situations where it can be very easy to just, not. Not do this, not do that, not do whatever. What we do in those moments will usually be the result of a choice made long before. We are -in large measure- who we choose to be.  For example, over four years ago I made the choice to be a husband. That choice carried with it myriad other choices that are all interrelated and interconnected and all of them already made. I will love this woman and act for her benefit because I chose at one point to do so for the rest of my life. I will cherish that bond and protect it at all costs. I will limit my relationships with other women no matter how well we may get along or or how innocent the interaction may be or how good a friend they may become because I will not allow even the chance of something developing that could put my marriage at risk. I made a choice.

I made a choice to start blogging again. I made a choice to work at it harder, to give it a higher priority than I had in times past. I made the choice to write something and post it every week come hell or high water. So I sat at this computer and a scraped the inside of my mind for something that would move my fingers. It was hard today. It likely wont be next week, though it could be. Anyone who works in a creative field knows that there are times when the water just doesn't flow, but still we strive and we reach and we work. Because we all made a choice.

Photo by Evan Dennis on Unsplash

What choices have you made? What decisions are driving you, what turns have you taken that have lead you to where you are? What new choices will you make tomorrow?

We need to understand the choices we make for they are the fuel that burns in the fire of our lives. They are the hinges upon which our days swing. I will get up, I will go to work, I will do my best, I will come home, I will love my spouse, I will love my kids, I will eat right, I will work out, I will read that book, I will do that homework, I will call my parents, I will go to bed before midnight, I will do it all again tomorrow. I choose because I have chosen.

There are promises in our choices. My wife is secure in my love not just because I show it daily but because the choice I made then was the choice to always choose her when the choice arose. The decision was made once and for all. When we decide what we will do when a situation arises than we are far more likely to do so when the time comes. Like a soldier training for endless hours so that his body reacts without thought when it needs to, so we must place in our minds the actions we want to take in the moments that will come to us in our tomorrows.

And I've managed to say something even if it wasn't much. What more would we all accomplish if we would only choose?

What are you doing and what will you? Decide.