Author and speaker H. Stephen Glenn has said, “In terms of the entire world, if, when you wake up in the morning, you have a choice of what to eat, a choice of what to wear, a job to go to and a way to get there, you have abundance.”
And yet we squander that abundance so often by not making choices in our lives. We allow life to just happen to us, instead of choosing what we believe to be best for us.
So the question becomes: are you a chooser or a loser?
How to be a loser:
• Allow life to just happen to you.
• Play the victim role.
• Complain without taking any action.
• Believe you have no power to influence yourself or others.
• Take a reactive approach to life – do not use you brain.
• Play it safe and don’t take risks – prefer the safety of mediocrity over the chance to go for want you want in life.
• Set very low expectations for yourself and then consistently fail to live up to them.
How to be a chooser:
• Realize – get it – that you have choices!
• Take a proactive approach to your life.
• Expect success and for things to go well and go your way.
• Set high expectations for yourself, higher than others expect of you, and then exceed them.
• Pick a direction in which to head and then pursue it with all you have got.
• Be creative. Creativity is simply this: “looking at something that has always been there and seeing something that has never been seen before.”
Choosers make choices. We do not pick or choose the family into which we are born. We do, however, choose our friends and our mates. It is important to choose your friends carefully, because you will become like them. It is crucial to pick your mate carefully.
We spend a very significant portion of our waking hours at work. So why not spend a significant portion of your waking hours doing something you love to do. Most of the people I talk with have a dream of what they would like to do for a living. Go for it.
Most people in suburbia do not know the names of their immediate neighbors. Here’s a question for you: how long are you going to watch other people live? Just how many reruns can you watch? Get up. Get outside. Choose to be alive.
Jeff Herring, MS, LMFT, is a marriage and family therapist.
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