Choices, choices

I’ve wanted to write about choices ever since I  saw  ”A narcissist destroyed my life” among  the headlines of a tabloid some time ago. I didn’t buy the tabloid and never read the article,  but seeing that statement gave me a lot to think about.  Another bitter story about how someone destroyed someone else’s life.

How come it’s always so easy to blame something or someone else  for our own misery or situation? You often hear people mentioning how alcohol or drugs, violent boyfriend, narcissist or even a difficult ex wife have destroyed the person’s life.  Rarely do you hear talk about how the person himself/herself started drinking too much or using drugs, or started seeing a person who turned out to be violent or narcissist and he/she decided to continue seeing this person anyway, or how he proposed to and married the woman who was difficult. If you think about it with common sense, you notice that all these kind of things are based on our own choices. Hardly ever does someone force us to drink alcohol or take drugs, to be in a relationship or to get married. So how can we blame anyone else but ourselves?

A girl I know once complained about her weight problem to me and told me it was all her boyfriend’s fault. She said it was very difficult getting rid of the extra weight as she had to eat a lot of chocolate and cookies because her boyfriend was so mean to her. I tried to express myself in the most diplomatic way I could and said that unless the man force fed her with the chocolate and cookies, he could not be blamed for her weight problems. It is herself who buys the chocolates and cookies from the store, brings them home and eats them. The boyfriend can be blamed for his mean behavior and that’s all. But in the end it was the girl who chose to go out with him and carry on the relationship. All of these have been her choices so how could she blame the boyfriend?

The great thing in life is we have the freedom to choose.
Every single day we make many choices; some of them are small and less meaningful, some are big and important. Whereas we choose what to wear in the morning, we can choose the mood we’re in and how we want to feel about the people and things that come across. We choose our friends and the people we have intimate relationships with. Of course there are things we can’t choose, like our parents or siblings, but we can choose how we feel about them. And the more positive we manage to feel about the people and things in our lives, the happier we are and the easier our life is.  

I’m sure everyone has made some bad choices along the way, and probable will do so also in the future, that’s only human. But luckily most of the times we have the possibility to make a new choice, change direction when we notice we’ve taken the wrong path. 
If you continuously do the same thing you’ve always done, you will have the same kind of experiences and people in your life over and over again.
If you want to change your life and experience something new, try choosing something that is different from your old pattern.

While making a choice you can always think “if I choose this, the instant consequences are… and the consequences in the long run are…”.  You can also think  about the effect of the possible choice on the people around yourself or even on a larger perspective. For example; if I quit smoking today, among the instant consequences will be that I will save money, my breath or clothes won’t smell like smoke anymore, bit by bit I will feel better and breathe more freely.  In the long run I will be more likely to avoid lung cancer. At work my boss and my colleagues will be happy as I won’t take cigarette breaks anymore…etc. 

The more positive meanings you can find for a certain choice, the more likely you are making the right choice. Making good choices will make you feel better and the quality of your life will improve. The more positive you decide to feel about different things and people, the better and more pleasant your days will be. You choose.

I wish you a great day and good choices! 

  

Spellbound by fantastic feedback

About a week ago a dear friend of mine said something really beautiful to me. It must have been one of the most beautiful things anyone had ever said to me. I was totally speechless, I would never have expected such a feedback, let alone coming from another woman! I thanked her and the rest of the evening passed by feeling those words in my head.

The next day I was in a fantastic mood. At work I felt happier than usual, it’s amazing how a good feedback can carry you a long way! I felt phenomenal the whole day and my work proceeded with very little effort. I started thinking what if this week I would try to be extra friendly to the people who come my way, smile more than usual and say nice things.

That little experiment turned out to be quite effortless as I was in such a good mood all week that the smiles and friendly words came out naturally. The consequence was that also I received an incredible amount of good feedback and smiles from people and I was feeling better and better. By the end of the week I was thinking I have to make a new way of living out of this.

With a sincere good feedback you can catch people’s attention and you might also start a chain reaction; if you make someone happy by giving this person good feedback, he/she might then be nicer towards other people etc. So in the best case scenario, if I say something nice to one person, my action may have a positive effect on many people’s day. Just as if I treated someone badly, I might start a chain reaction that could have a miserable effect on various people’s day. Just like the law of attraction says; in life you get more of the exact things that you focus on, whether they are good or bad.

After this fantastic week it was easy for me to decide I want to concentrate more on saying positive things to people who come my way. It would be wonderful also to start gossiping good things about people, what do you think?