The Bad News
The bad news is that we underestimate the power of our own choices and our role in creating our lives. We make hundreds of choices a day: many small, some more significant and others habitual, which we don’t give any thought to at all.
When choices become habits, just “something we do,” we forget about the element of choosing. Choice is defined as an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities. Our subconscious mind takes over what is habitual and we forget that a different option or possibility exists. Our daily routine becomes buying the booze, or eating the ice cream, or mindlessly scrolling through social media, or spending yet another day being silent about how we really feel.
At some point, these choices catch up with us. We look back and ask how we got to this place. We don’t like the life we’ve created with these endless, often unconscious, choices. We turn our back on God for this miserable life we feel trapped in.
This is because choices are followed by consequences, and when we start noticing them in our lives we don’t like it, even though they are the direct result of our own decisions and actions.
Consequence is defined as a result or effect of an action or condition. You begin to suffer health issues as a result of what your are choosing to put into your body. You realize that you are mentally unhealthy, whether it’s the condition of depression, anxiety, or loneliness. You admit that your life has become small, and definitely not what you had planned. You feel resentful, discontented, and like life isn’t fair.
The Good News
The good news is that we have choices to make each day: many small, some more significant, and most habitual. And when choices become habits, we forget about the element of choosing. Our subconscious mind takes over the habitual and we forget that a different option or possibility exists. Our daily routine becomes exercising, enjoying sparkling water with cranberry while cooking dinner, spending an hour with the kids without screens, and speaking our truth and loving ourselves for it.
Then the consequences of our daily choices start to catch up with us. We look back at what we’ve been doing and can understand how we arrived at this new place. We love the life we’ve created through these endless, often unconscious, choices. We turn toward God and say, “I’m going in the right direction now.”
The good news is a consequence doesn’t have to be bad if the choices we make are healthy. Don’t underestimate the power of choice, or the responsibility we as humans have in creating our one beautiful and precious life.