bathwater

“You always have a choice.”

I’ve spoken or written this central message of The Best Advice So Far literally thousands of times by now. And yet, I still feel and see the power in it as much as I ever have—the power to transform the way we view and live life.

In the first chapter of the book, I introduce you to Chad. You can read his full story there in the book (or HERE, right now and for FREE, if you like); but I trust you’ll get the gist from this snippet, even without the full context:

You see, even an ultra-optimist like Chad fell apart and was completely overwhelmed and despondent, because he’d forgotten a very important truth. He was immobilized, because he believed in that space of time that life was happening to him, and that he had no say in the matter. Yet, once he was reminded of this key truth, he not only rebounded but began to take the world by storm.

THE BEST ADVICE SO FAR: You always have a choice.

Chad did not need to be a doctor. There was no rule that said he must struggle through a schedule of classes he hated, or even that he needed to remain at that university. Chad had choices.

If you don’t accept this truth—that you always have a choice—if you don’t remember it and live it, then you are left to play the part of the victim in life. You begin (or continue) to live as if life is happening to you, that you are powerless, oppressed by your circumstances. But, if you truly change your mind set to believe and live out in practical ways that, in every circumstance, you have a choice—now, you open a door for change. Instead of living as if life is happening to you, you will begin to happen to life. You will begin to realize the difference that one person—you—can make, that you are an agent of change in your own life and in the lives of others.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that we get to choose everything that happens to us in life. We do not choose abuse, for instance, and we can at no time choose to undo those things which have happened to us in life.

We do not choose illness. We do not choose when or how the people we love will leave us. Or die.

We do, however, have the choice of how we will respond in every situation, even the hurtful ones. Instead, so often, we pour our frustration and anger into those things we cannot change, rather than investing that energy into the many choices that we can make from that point forward.

And yet, I realized recently that, much of the time, the stories I feature center on macro-level change:

• You are not “stuck” in that job. It’s within your power to choose to walk away from it and do something else (as impossible as that may seem in a moment).
• You don’t need to stay with that B.E.A.S.T., i.e., Big Energy-Absorbing Stupid Thing, that you’ve stuck with for so long even though it’s sucking the life out of you (for your own sake, if you haven’t already, please read that chapter in the book, or this post).
• Chad wasn’t doomed to misery throughout his college years for the sake of grinding through a major he hated, even if quitting diverted from plan or conflicted with the perceived expectations of others.

In essence, each of these is a way of saying, “You can stop doing that—right now—and make a whole new choice.”

And that is 100% true. You can.

But it isn’t the only option. Not by a long shot.

Today, I want to explore another possibility…

Staying.

You see, staying is also a choice. Sometimes, it’s even the best choice—one that involves countless other choices that have the ability to breathe new life into a tired, difficult or even painful situation.

I’m in the process of writing my next book, entitled Tried and (Still) True, which seeks to revitalize some very old pieces of popular wisdom that have sadly gone out of use. Among them is this gem:

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Rather than just read over that and move on, leaving it as no more than vague notion, let’s do some visualization together.

I present to you Exhibit B (for “Baby”).

When most people hear the word “baby,” they envision a wide-eyed little wonder like the one on the Gerber label.

Awww. Babies are adorable (even when they aren’t really). Babies coo and giggle. Babies think everything we do is hilarious. We want to cuddle them and talk gibberish to them and smell their baby-head smell.

Thing is … babies also poop.

In fact, sometimes, babies poop a lot. It’s remarkable, really, how such a tiny body can even… [continue reading this post at the main site by clicking the button below]

 

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