"Everything you are comes from your choices."
- Jeff Bezos
Motivation Monday - Richard's Insight
It can be either entirely liberating or utterly frightening to know and believe this to be true. Do we choose our own destiny? Do we bring on that good or bad experience ourselves? Is who we are based on all the decisions (choices) we have made over our lifetime?
Well, Jeff Bezos says yes! He is not alone in this, it is a spiritual and psychological teaching that has spanned the generations too.
Whether or not there is no 'higher power', we can still see that many of the decisions and choices we take lead to a certain outcome. If we had taken a different choice we would end up in a different place. If we decide to read a certain book, for example, we will pick up an influence from doing so, be it conscious or otherwise.
The thing about this quote is that it actually sets us free. It enables us to take full responsibility for ourselves and our lives in the knowledge that we designed it and us that way. We no longer play the victim, even if someone has wronged us...we can determine our part, or decision or choice that factored in that. I know that seems like a controversial statement to make and if I think of what can happen to the 'innocent' such as children, I am not totally comfortable with it myself. However, I am looking at this idea in a wider form...the life decisions and choices that we make and if we focus on that we can see perhaps how we might have ended up as we are, where we are.
Whether we fully believe this idea or not...it should certainly make us think a little more about all the choices and decisions we take in life. Over-eat or healthy option? Read to learn or for entertainment? Instant or delayed gratification? Hard work or easy life? These are all examples where it is pretty obvious which choice will lead to an outcome that is best for us and which is not...I think!
-Richard W J Brown