The Choice Is Yours

We all have moments when everything seems like an uphill challenge. We are human after all. However, what we need to do, at times like those, is to take stock of what really matters.

This week, I am sharing a reflection I had after a conversation with a friend, where they were describing their mindset about life in lockdown.

After the conversation, we both walked away with a more positive mindset and I wanted to share the realisation we reached.

Hopefully, this will help you to overcome similar challenges in your life too.

For more on mindset, you can check out these other videos on well-being and staying positive:

Watch: How to manage your negative emotions

Watch: Stress management and well-being

Prefer to read rather than watch and listen? No problem – here’s everything I said in the video as text:

The choices we have and the choices we make.

That was the theme of a recent conversation with a friend. This discussion is more a loud reflection, my own learnings from that conversation.

To give you a little background about my friend. He is a very balanced, very aware person, focused on personal development, blessed with a great family, great health, and a really good business.

This conversation was a little different, from the way he comes across. This is how he started his conversation, “I'm feeling really caged. This is getting on my nerves, and this is getting into my head. I'm just not liking this lockdown”.

And of course, as a friend, I was there with him. I listened to him very carefully and I said, “Tell me more about it, what do you mean caged?”.

He said, “You know, we are stuck in this house, and I can't go on the long drives, that I would love to go on, and I can't go and have beer with my mates and I'm just stuck in the house”.

I just smiled and I said, “Hold on, how many times do you go out for a beer with your mates, or you go on these long drives? What exactly are you talking about here?”

He said, “‘I know, I don't. But still, in case I want to do them”.

This is where my reflection began. This is where I started thinking, saying “Actually, we need to be very careful of what we are telling ourselves. We tell ourselves, this narrative, that there are so many choices, which are taken away from us right now. But the question really is, did we exercise those choices in the past? Are there really those essential choices, that we need to exercise?”

That is one. Then the other thing, which my friend did was, he asked me, “So how's it going for you?”.

Just talking about that clarified it in my head, and I am sharing it with you.

I said, “Look, I know that it's difficult, and it's difficult for me too. There are so many choices, which I can't exercise, which I would love to exercise. But it is actually helping me focus more on myself. The fact, that I have lesser distractions on my schedule with these gatherings, parties, and other socialization, it is actually helping me spend more time on my introspection, reflections, meditations. I'm going inward, I'm spending more time with myself”.

The second thing, that is happening with me, is that I am exercising the choices that I have. It is really helping me identify the choices I really have.

The point is, I have a choice of how I want my mindset to be.

I have a choice of deciding to be happy or unhappy.

I have a choice of being positive or negative.

I have a choice of being joyful or being miserable.

And I choose to exercise the choices that I have, which I can do something about.

I reminded my friend that happiness does not just happen like that. You have to choose to be happy. You have to consciously decide that, yes, this is how I want my being to be.

As you can imagine, by the time we finished the conversation, my friend was choosing to be happier. My friend chose to exercise the choices, that he had.

Also understand that, what can't be cured, needs to be endured.

We have to see through this period because this too shall pass.

I am sharing these reflections with you because I know, that out of this crisis, I'm getting to spend more time with myself, introspect more, reflect more, meditate more and I'm consciously choosing to be happier.