Choices and Chances

Choices and Chances                  12-30-2014

By John W. Vander Velden

 

How would life be, if…? 

We enjoyed several movies this holiday season, where the main character felt certain that they had made the wrong choice.  Over and over we watched as the character wished for the life they had passed up, certain that it would be better than the over complex world that they felt swept them away.  I know, I know, it’s an overdone scenario.  Even at the film’s beginning we knew that after spending time in their alternate universe, they would come to appreciate the life they had.  Yet it’s kinda’ fun watching how desperate they grow, longing for what they had tossed aside at the story’s beginning.

Yes, the stories are cheesy and exaggerated, but there is an “It’s a Wonderful Life” kind of message buried in those stories.  A lesson for all of us.  For life is full of choices and each choice brings with it a chance.  Everyone – and I do mean everyone – looks back at the choices they have made and wonders -- how would life be if…?  For there are choices we have made that we regret.  Our past is filled with many of these.  Some made on impulse.  Others out of spite.  There were those decisions that were just plain stupid.  We look back and wonder how different our life would be if…

Choices and chances, often it comes to just that.  Dwelling on what might have been, can separate us from what is.  There was a time I was forced to make many important choices.  I am certain that obligation comes to everyone sooner or later.  As I consider that time and all the difficult decisions I made, I know that not all my choices were the best, and that troubles me.  Times it troubles me a great deal.  But I have come, at last, to an understanding.  I know I made the best choice I could have at the moment.  I did not know the chance or the final value.  I used the information I had, ground it up, put it together, sweat and worried, but in the end I chose!  It was up to me and no other.  And during that time I never chose for my personal benefit.  I took the chance…and educated chance, but I took it.  If I knew then what I know – NOW – likely I would have, at times, chosen differently.  But that is exactly the point, I didn’t know!

Life is like that, isn’t it?  Life is a learning experience.  It’s about taking a chance each time we make an important choice.  But life must be more than dwelling on the past, more than wondering what if.  For the space we occupy and those we share that space with, are an accumulation of actions we have taken.  Our life is shaped by those actions – those choices – the good ones as well as those we now consider foolish.  In a way our choices have made us, and in my case “I’m OK with that”.  Rather than dwell on what if -- I focus on WHAT IS, and find myself grateful for the world, for life, and for my place in it.  Yes, choices come with a chance, but what a wonderful opportunity to build – WHAT IS!

(541 Words)