the Choosing Project

Tragic choices, heroic ones.
Questionable, arguable, defenseless, bad ones.
Spontaneous, reckless, risky, terrible ones.
Passionate, unwavering, no-brainers.

We all have choices. We all make choices.

We choose our course of action, our response, our attitude, our reaction.

It's true that each of us are living a life as a consequence of someone else's decisions. I reflect on my own life - a conglomeration of choices made that put my feet on a path that if I had been born into a different family at a different time might not be the same journey I'm traveling today.

But I don't want a different journey.
"Do you regret your childhood?" people ask me, and in a way they're asking, "Do you regret the choices that were made for you as a kid..."

I always say, "No. No regrets. I wouldn't change my story," because somewhere along the way of growing up, it becomes mine and your responsibility to harness those choices and choose how they're going to influence our lives.

In April I started losing some of the most important components of my life - my family. My energetic, organic, beautifully messy family .... our unit began dissolving. One choice snowballed into another and another and another until now here we are, fragmented.

The pain is majestic, brutal.

The choice that is mine is how I respond.

In June I felt as if I were in a dryer, heat set high on tumble - people's choices swirling around me, bouncing me from one emotion to the next, putting me in one situation and then another.

Wait a second.

You only have as much control over me as I choose to give you.

There is it again: MY CHOICE.

So I started asking myself, "What do you choose for today?" and I would answer.

That simply it was born, a routine of asking myself every morning, "What do you choose for today?" and me jotting down on a piece of paper: "Today I choose..." The pieces of paper have stacked up on my desk. People ask me when they visit: "What are these pieces of paper?"

"Oh, those are my choices for the day, what I'm embracing."

Because sometimes it's as simple as that. Choosing.

I invite you to this mindset, this Choosing Project.

Here, I'll start.