A crystal ball? No thank you.
Having recently celebrated my birthday, the older (and hopefully, wiser) I get, the more I realise how much of a blessing (and choice) life is. I’m the first to shoot up my hand and admit that life can be torturously confronting, challenging and overwhelming, but it’s also breathtaking, exciting and bloody brilliant, polarising and spectacularly illuminating.
We never know what direction life is going to take us in, or what’s around the corner, but isn’t that the whole point? Doesn’t that make living life richer and fuller?
A coaching client recently asked me, ‘if you were given the chance to look into a crystal ball and see exactly how your life is going to turn out, each step of the way, would you want to know?’ My immediate and resounding ‘NO’ came full throttle.
To know would be to take away all that lights us up in the world and what gives life meaning.
For people like you and I, we live life in the fast lane. We dive headfirst and figure out the landing on the way down, collecting a bump or bruise on the way down, knowing it makes us tougher, stronger. We say, ‘f*ck it’ and go for it even when we’re unsure what ‘it’ actually is!
We don’t want to know if that mind-blowing kiss we shared with someone is going to be the first of many or the last, or if that first unassuming encounter with a stranger will turn out to be the start of a beautiful friendship with a lifelong buddy – we want to relish the joy of the moment irrespective of outcome.
Don’t tell us about all the challenges that might (will) come from building a business, or the risks involved – we just want to take them because we know it’s going to be so worth it!
We’re ok with people not fully understanding our quirks and perks, or our complex contradictions – they bewilder and enchant us.
We welcome the highs and lows because we know we can’t appreciate the light without the dark. We can’t know real love if we haven’t experienced the depths of despair.
There’s no toe dipping in the ocean of vulnerability; we dive deep and bathe in the beauty of all that rawness, emerging to bare our soul even more, and say to the world, ‘here I am, naked, pure and whole – I’m ready, ready for more expansion and growth.’
We pierce directly through the surface of ‘shoulds, woulds and coulds’ and just do, be and live.
We make choices, and we make them for ourselves, nobody else.
You see, all of life is a choice. Even when we don’t choose, we’re making a choice.
I choose to experience life in all its unruly glory and chaos.
I choose to accept that I sometimes (okay, often) go for the harder option, because doing ‘plain Jane’ ‘same same’ or ‘status quo’ is just not in my DNA, and quite frankly, I don’t want it to be!
I choose to keep my heart open even when it’s been broken and mistreated.
I choose to soften my edges even when life’s hardships encourage the opposite.
I choose to express compassion and extend forgiveness, even when it tests me because I know the world is a better place when we love instead of judge.
I choose to persevere and persist even when it’s painful, because it pays of.
I choose to indulge in that glass, or three, of wine – just because.
I choose to stay active and fit because I know when I do, I feel and function better. Fact.
I choose to remain optimistic even when life kicks my ass!
I choose to hold space for others because all people truly want is to be heard and loved.
I’m constantly choosing – and re-choosing, because I can and because I want to live life on my terms, as I know you do too.
I’m here to say: You can choose too. The choice, dear one, is always yours.
What will you choose?
Share with me in the comments, I’d love to celebrate your choices with you.
