Things We Should Decide For Ourselves

Most of you know I write my blogs on the weekends and schedule them to post. But this past weekend I opened numerous documents, intending to get them all done, and even though I’ve had lots of great bloggish thoughts this month, my mind blanked every time. I think there’s just too much information in there struggling to come out. You know how it goes.

So I decided to share little tidbits of everything going on in my head, in hopes that once I get them all out, I can do something else productive without being distracted. That said, my current thoughts are all over the map, so for this post, I’m making a list of things we have to decide for ourselves, regardless of who tells us differently or otherwise.

Only we can decide:

1.       How success looks to us.

2.       What we have to do in order to find that success.

3.       Whether we should continue to try (or give up), and why.

4.        What is best for us in our current circumstances.

5.       What our gut tells us to do, and whether or not we should act on that feeling.

6.       What we want most.

7.       Who we love and why, and what we do with those feelings.

8.       How we react to things that hurt us or make us angry or sad.

9.       How we react to things that make us happy and/or successful, or other fortune that comes our way.

10.   Who and what matters most to us, and why, and what we will do about it.

11.   What REALLY = success.

12.   What defines us as individuals.

13.   What’s worth fighting for and what isn’t.

14.   When to hold on.

15.   When to let go.

I told you my brain is full. What about you? What needs to be added to this list?

Daily Defining Moments, Part I: Popcorn

In general, fiction stories start with a turning point, the day everything changes for the main character. The reason this works is because readers can identify with these defining moments in things that happen to them as often as every day. This week, I want to explore some of the daily defining moments I’ve witnessed in real life. Just because, well, your thoughts on the matter will interest me.

Subject number one:

Over the weekend, I took two of my kids to a movie. As the closing credits rolled and the theater emptied out, we followed the crowd toward the exit. Near the door, a woman dropped her half-full bag of popcorn on the floor. She paused, looked around, then back at the mess, and bent to pick up her bag (the easy part) leaving the corn to be scattered by those walking out behind her.

Now, maybe I was extra irritated because of the fact that my son works there, and I knew he would likely be the one stuck cleaning up that particular mess. But as I watched her leave, I couldn’t help but wonder what the woman was thinking. Or if she was thinking at all. She consciously made the decision to leave the mess for someone else, rather than scooping even some of it back into the bag and throwing it in the trash.

So. In this instance, do you think it’s true that we are the decisions we make? Or do our decisions make us who we are?