The ultimate choice

Today I saw someone pose the question "what have you done to make a difference in your life?" (or something to that effect). Many people are talking about making a choice to exercise, making a choice to eat differently, some get a little more insightful and say they decided to love themselves, accept themselves, etc. All good answers, but this is my blog, so this is about my answer :)

Without going into detail about some of my struggles and the challenges I faced in my life, I will say, by the time I was 22 I was escaping one marriage, with a 1 year old, in the middle of my graduate degree, overweight and overwhelmed. In the next couple years I would start to change my mindset on a few things. For now, I'm going to connect it to my weight and then I'll expand. I'd been overweight my whole life. By the time I was in my early 20s I had reserved myself to just being this way. It was not my choice. It was just who I was. I was never going to be different. And then I got connected with a weight loss program that taught me it was my choice... and I started to find success. While I am not connected to this program any more, the things I gained during the years I was involved was invaluable as it was a catalyst in my life.

What did this teach me? It taught me that while there are going to be times in our lives when we will truly be a victim (for example, my marriage), ultimately I can make a choice to remain a victim or I can make a choice to stop accepting my lot in life and do something different. I use the statement often that I stopped letting the universe act on me and I started acting on the universe. I stopped simply accepting that I was always going to be overweight, abused, or whatever it might be. I started looking at what I could do to make things different. I might not always be able to stop the legitimate victimization that happens, but I can stop allowing perpetrators to control me. Despite facing some struggles during my divorce, I did NOT stop fighting for the things that really mattered, because I learned I could ACT ON this and not just accept it. Despite facing some struggles getting through graduate school, I did NOT stop working towards my degree and in the end, I got it because I focused on doing what I could do every day to get it done. Things suck sometimes... that's the way it is, but when you stop rolling over and letting yourself get stepped on, you can take the kicks, get back up and start acting on the universe. What do you have to lose? Nothing is going to change unless you decide to change it.