Friday, May 4, 2012

Choice and Accountability


Today I’m thinking about choices, and how whenever we make one, something happens. Maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s bad. Maybe it doesn’t matter, or maybe it does. We might choose to eat pudding for dinner, or pizza for breakfast, or nothing for days and days on end. Or maybe we gorge ourselves, eating everything we see for days and days on a whacked-out junk-food binge. Whatever. The point is that all those things are choices, and they all have consequences.

For instance, if we eat pudding for dinner, we might wake up starving in the middle of the night because our body needs more substance. Or if we eat pizza for breakfast, we might suffer from heartburn for the rest of the day. Or if we starve ourselves, we’ll mess up our metabolism and probably gain more weight than we could ever lose. Or if we binge eat—well, same thing, actually.

But those are small-ish choices. Every day we face bigger, more important choices that will affect our lives forever. Where and how we live, how we act and react, treat others, do with our time, who we love and how we show that love. Every day there are so. Many. Choices. To make.

And also, so many consequences for which we must be accountable.

Accountable. Us. Not everyone else (although, most of the time, our choices do affect others), us.

Regardless of what happens, your choices lead you. And when you get to wherever you’re going, whether it’s a good place or a bad place, it’s not because of anyone else, but because of choices made by YOU.

Food for thought, anyway. Hopefully, it’s more nourishing than the junk-food mentioned above. 

4 comments:

LM Preston said...

Sometimes I plan my choices and other times I fly by the seat of my pants into the unknown. I like both and learn from both.

Windy Aphayrath said...

this is such a good post. so many blame others for things that happen, things they go through, how life turns out, but really, over the course of your life, it's your decisions that make you who and what you are and put you on the path you're on. now i want some pizza. with pudding for dessert.

Anonymous said...

It's thoughts like these that keep me up at night. Good thoughts and life changing thoughts. But like you said, we have tons of choices every single day for which we are accountable. Sometimes that's incredibly overwhelming. Still, I relish the fact that each and every choice is mine to make.

Nichole Giles said...

I agree, L.M., we do learn from both.

Windy, I hope you enjoyed your pizza and pudding!

Laura, you really should get some sleep. That would be a good choice, I think.

Thanks so much for your comments, ladies.