When I was a child, I would hear this question now and then – What do you want to be when you grow up?
During those days of innocence when I was a child and without a care in the world, my answer would always be – "I want to be a software engineer. Sometimes I’d say ‘a soft engine.’"
Fast forward in time to 2019, I am far from what I wanted to be. Things did not go as planned.
After matriculation, I went on to study science in higher secondary school. Then, after my higher secondary I enrolled for a BCA – Bachelor in Computer Applications – degree.
Well, life didn't go as planned; I did not become who I thought I would be? Was this path suppose to define me? Where would my life lead to next?
Choices...
I am a Catholic. There are two teachings from the Bible: Free-will and God is all-knowing (aware of the past, present & future) which was baffling to me as I could not understand how to integrate the two concepts.
I was contradicted, if God has already planned my future, how does my free-will work then?
Through the wisdom that God has blessed me with I thought more about it and I realized how both teachings could go hand in hand.
God does know everything about our past, present, and future. God gives us the liberty of choice.
I assume that God already knows about the different paths we can take in life. However, he also gives us the liberty of choice. To choose which path we want to go too.
Based on our choices, He guides us. With free will comes responsibility – its consequences if we make the wrong choice and its rewards if we make the right choice.
The choice I make about getting up early in the morning helps me get to a meeting on time.
The choice I make today to drink lots of water daily will keep me healthy.
The choice I make to send a text message can result in a happy ending or a heartbreak.
Every second of every minute of every day, we have an opportunity to make a choice.
What I find very interesting is that the choices I make sometimes do not affect only me or just my time; it also affects the people around me and their time or commitments.
Here’s an example of a bad choice. If I was driving a car with my friend, and I choose to drive at breakneck speed. I am likely to lose control and hit someone or another vehicle. As a result of my bad choice, I could cause an unfortunate accident, thus affecting others adversely.
I hope I did not scare you! I just wanted to share how the wrong choice could impact another person’s life. Also, affect their future.
What if...
I have learned a lot from all the ‘What if....’ questions that have come to me at various points in life.
When my Dad passed away. During the first few months, I kept on asking myself
"What if Dad has been not seriously ill?"
"What if I had not shown him my anger and said I love you now and then?"
"What if I had spent more time with him"?
Let’s revisit the driving scenario shared earlier. In the event of an accident, I would surely ask myself "What if I had driven slowly?" "What if I had not overtaken at that instance?" and so on.
If the choices we make leads to unfavorable outcomes, we regret what we have done and we keep thinking of what we could have done differently.
However, we are but human. We cannot make correct choices all the time. We can only be alert and learn from every outcome.
Making a choice today to learn from the choices we have made...
Now, there are choices in life made for us or choices we have no control over. Some of which are our name, where we were born, our birthday, number of siblings and so on.
There are some choices that we have made in life that we cannot change. There is no CTRL+Z in life; we all know that. Time does not stop.
We cannot bring our departed loved ones back. We cannot bring time back. Time is precious and so our choices to spend that time are very important.
We can still make better choices now. Better late than never.
I might not have shown my dad how much I loved him then, but I can now, through my prayers for him to God daily. To truly learn my lesson, I show love to the ones I still can – my family, my mom, my sister and all my dear ones.
Failures and down times in life is nothing new for any of us. I have often wished that my life could have been like 'that' instead of 'this.' But don't be busy looking at what others have. Look at what you have.
Be grateful, spend your time and energy wisely.
It did, is and will happen only once...
We are all unique in our ways.
Every day is unique and a new day brings more opportunities and choices to make. I received a host of opportunities on 21st Sep 1995 – the day I was born.
When I was young, I chose to drop out of college. I chose to be there for my family. I then chose to work with Chillibreeze. While I did not become what I thought I would be, my life now is fulfilling. Especially because I choose to look at it that way!
Don't agree with me... It’s your choice, you decide!
I choose to spend my time writing this. I hope that this short read will help you in some way.
Make a choice now!!!!
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