The Choices We Make

This week, while riding the train to work, I started to think about the most recent choices that I had made in my life. “How did I get here?” I asked myself. “How did I allow myself to get this way?”

I posted my response in the form of a quote.

I believe that consciousness exists in every action. That we are all aware of the capacity of our deeds.

I’m sure you’ve all been given an “I told you so,” at some time in your life. And I’m quite sure you didn’t really need to hear it from someone else. That little voice in our heads called a conscience plays over and over again like a broken record, and still we choose to do whatever it is that we do. In this crazy rollercoaster of life, there are so many opportunities to jump ship. To take stock of what we’ve done and to get off the crazy train. Most of the time, we don’t want to. Most of the time, we purposely lead ourselves astray. Most of the time, we do the wrong thing at the wrong time, and all of the time, we only think of about ourselves. When you know what we want and where we want to go, nothing stands in our way. We justify our actions because we tell ourselves that things can’t be helped. That they would’ve happened anyway. Often, we grasp at straws to make it last, convince ourselves that ultimately we’ll stop. That eventually, things will end. That we’ll move on after a seizing a few more moments. That things will work themselves out.

The beauty of life is that it is full of choices. We spend each and every day choosing between one thing or another, knowing full well that every action leads to a reaction. Cause and effect. Nothing we ever do happens in a vacuum – every single occurrence is connected to something else.

The beauty of being human is being able to admit that sometimes, we’ve made the wrong choice. That we have the hearts and the souls to make it right. That our fallibility is a gift. And that once we accept responsibility for our actions, we will be able to hear the end of every song.