One thing that is certain about my life is that I have the ability to choose.

There are tons of choices I make every day, from what to wear and what to eat and all the way up to the very important choice of what to think. (Frankly, a lot of my thoughts are of the ‘automatic’ kind-the stuff my subconscious has already made up its mind about. More on that later.) There is always a choice to make, and that concept can be met with some resistance. There are plenty of things that happen or that exist outside of my choices-I did not choose a car accident, or a health problem, or an economic downturn, or a pandemic. So there is much in life that is not a result of my choices that does have a significant impact. That said, I still have the ability and freedom to choose, not all that happens to me, but the MEANING I assign to those events.

I remember fondly a scene in a movie done by the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He told the story of the Zen Master in a small village. There was a young boy in the village who was given a horse on his birthday. All the village people said ‘How Wonderful!’. The Zen master said ‘We’ll see.’ Then later the boy fell off his horse and broke his leg, and the village people said ‘How terrible!’ And the Zen master said ‘We’ll see’. Then a conflict broke out with a neighboring village and all the young boys had to go and fight and risk their lives, except the young boy with the broken leg. And all the people of the village said ‘How wonderful!’ And the Zen Master said-

“We’ll see.”

So often we are quick to decide that an event is wonderful or terrible, and once we’ve decided which it is we don’t often shift our view of it. Because we all have an innate need to be right, we will continue to gather evidence that our label for an event or topic is correct. We will reinforce our belief in the meaning that we have assigned. The reality is that we don’t know how the story ends, and in our quest to be right we may miss opportunities that are literally right in front of us. We may indulge ourselves in negative emotion that brings about other results that we don’t want.

I love these two quotes from the great Dr. Wayne Dyer:

“What ever happened in your life had to happen. The proof is, IT DID”

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

The value in a shift in perspective is potentially priceless. Seeing something or someone through a different ‘Lense’ is the beginning of solution. Let’s face it, we form our opinions out of our previously developed beliefs. Very often this is not a conscious choice; our active (and extremely powerful) subconscious takes over and PRESTO! We know the answer. (A great example of this is the saying ‘My mind is made up, don’t confuse me with the facts.’)

The beginning of a valuable shift in perspective is often just a dose of humility. When I can admit to myself that maybe, just maybe, I don’t know all there is to know about a subject or situation and think and operate from that space, magic can happen. Relationships can be repaired, business success can result, health can be improved. Most importantly, options and more choices are created. This type of shift is both mental and emotional and is really the result of a choice to bring about a better result.

Now THAT’s a choice worth making.