I'm not a good blogger. I never know what exactly to write about. I want to sound smart and profound for all 3 people who may stumble upon this... but I'm not an overly profound guy, and I don't have a lot of deep answers to life or even my own set of problems and situations of life. Or a lot of the times when I do I just don't think they are all that interesting and therefor don't write about them. Tonight (this morning) is no different, but I'm going to write anyways and just get some thoughts out of my head and into the blog. Here goes:
One of my favorite things to think about is choices. Last year I was in a class where we were learning about communist Russia. The professor told a story about a man who was pretty high up in the USSR government and he defected from communism and came over to America for protection. Apparently in the USSR the people were all issued the same food, the same clothes, the same cars, the same everything. There was no real room for choices to be made by the individual. Well this man who came over to America for protection was brought to the Washington DC area and was set up with a new house and a new life. The CIA agent who was assigned to help get him acclimated to his new home was showing him around his new town and took him to the nearest grocery store to let him know where he would be able to do his shopping. The russian man walked into the grocery store and was overwhelmed with the amount of choices of every different type of food and item in the store. He told the CIA agent that he thought this was a lie. He couldn't believe that there was anywhere on earth where that magnitude of choice was available. He told the CIA agent that he didn't believe that this was real. He thought it was a set-up by the United States to try to make America seem more appealing to this man than the USSR. The CIA agent told the man to point in any direction and he would drive to any place and show him as many stores as he needed to see before he would be convinced. They drove for 2 hours and about 75 miles to a whole bunch of stores before the Russian man had seen enough. He began to break down in utter disbelief. His brain literally couldn't handle having that much choice available to him. After crying for a bit, the russian man told the CIA agent that he wanted to go back to Russia. He didn't care what happened to him there, he only knew he couldn't handle life in America. So they sent him back. True story.
My whole life I have been taught that agency is a great gift. I had no idea. The more we use our agency and use it wisely the more choices we will have available to us and our ability to use it will grow. I've hard that a lot, but I never knew how REAL that is. I am so grateful for the gift I have been given to be able to choose. Some choices are kinda small and stupid and are probably insignificant, but having heard that story about the russian man, I am so so so grateful that I get to choose. And that I can choose. It makes me look at all the phases in my life I have the ability to have choice in. Choice is in everything. It really is. No wonder we fought a war in Heaven to defend it. We can choose who to follow, we can choose what to do, we can choose what to eat, we can choose what to read, we can choose what we say, we can choose friends, clothes, shoes, tooth paste... anything. Well, almost anything.
We don't get to choose what happens in life. Life will happen. Good or bad. The lesson I am learning right now is that I can choose how to react, and I can choose what my attitude will be. I can choose to be happy. I can choose to be optimistic. I can choose to be grateful. I can choose to be content. I can choose to be confident. I can choose to not let things get me down. I can choose to focus on my blessings. I can choose to look for the good in all things... and best of all, I can choose to mean it when I do.
I'm not profound. Somebody has thought and said these things waaaay before me. But I believe it. I won't be perfect at this, but I can also choose to not give up if I make a bad choice. I can choose to not give up on myself.
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