Do you have a choice?!

Please answer this……tomorrow is your last day, you have only one choice left before you die, what would it be? Will you be still be doing what you are doing? Would you still make the same choice as you did just a moment ago? Pushed into a corner of time, you might find decision making easily in such a hypothetical situation. It might be easy to choose to be in the arms of the one you love, or to watch a beautiful sunset or hear the laughter of a grandchild. You might have heard about the story told by Buddha that shows us some of the essence of choice. Allow me to share this beautiful little story with you.

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him.

Imagine you are this man (or woman). You are dangling from a vine having climbed down to avoid being eaten by a tiger. There is no escape, your death is inevitable. Two mice are gnawing at the vine so your death is imminent. Alongside you is a small wild strawberry bush and on it, a juicy berry ready to be eaten. If you grab it, which you can, you begin the process of falling.

What would you choose to do?

Choice is part of everything you do, what time to wake up in the morning, to take or not to take a (healthy) breakfast) to do or not to do excerises in the morning, to go or not to go to work. They all are choices you make everyday. The choice to pursuit your dream, start your own business, to swith your career or to end or start a relationship, it all determines who you are, what you know, think, feel or believe.

Some choices are easy but many of them often difficult. So how come that these choices would be much more easy when you are facing death and you had nothing to fear or to loose? Isn't there another way?

The freedom of choice

The good news is that you can learn how to make decisions with your body, mind and spirit. Discover which decisions you need to make, which ones demand your attention and priority. Plus make them, regardless whether they are perceived hard or easy. Yes, "perceived" hard or easy.

The “perception is reality” adage is most often applied to the way each of us sees our own environment. What I believe is true, is my reality. If you see the glass as half full, you will operate from that reality and the glass will always be at least half full. But what if you turn that adage inside out? What if the reality you're experiencing is due in part to how you believe others are perceiveing you?

If you are in that situation: I have GREAT news for you.

Your freedom starts with one choice, the choice to push past fear, no matter what.

You have freedom.

As a human being you can choose. Consiously.

The question is: do you dare to choose?

Being succesful is a choice

Choice is very powerful. When you make a real choice, mountains move to make way for you. And there is a dramatic difference between CHOICE and goals or desires. Choice is followed by action. Until you take action, what you have is a goal or desire which really are just thoughts and dreams.

Many people have goals or dreams and even more people have excuses not to pursuit their dreams, that career, going for a relationship or as simple as being more healthy and excercise a little more everyday.

Choice on the otherhand creates movement.

When you decide, you just do it and you take action. With no drama. With ease, you will move through the steps you need to take to do what seemed impossible. It isn't a wish or a desire it is something you decided to make it happen. Once you make the choice, the pieces and steps will all fall into place. It can be applied on small or large decissions in your life. This shows us that choice, in the guise of ownership, allows you to move forward. With the inclusion of mind, body and spirit, your wants and/or your needs can be met. If you set aside fear and choose.

Let's say you have this great opportunity. You will ask yourself: “What does it cost me to go after this opportunity?” The cost of going for or not going for your dream? Do any of these sound familiar? And the answers in your head: "I’m afraid that if I go for it in my business, that I’ll burn out." "I’ll create a monster that will take over my life. It will be too much work, and I’ll lose my freedom; my free time; my energy and happiness." "I’m afraid that I’ll have to work too hard and won’t have time for my kids" "I'm not sure if I will be succesful" "I might fail", "I am not good enough", "I am not smart enough"...

This is what your current opportunity cost is based on your fear mindset. But what if you didn’t push past your fear and take action? What would be the cost of not taking action? Have you answered that for yourself?

Break free

So it is all about choice. Choosing to be free, be YOU. The act of choosing is fundamental to life, learning how to make decisions and where to get the information from, is what makes your choices good.

Where do you go to find out the information, the knowledge, the support? How can you integrate mind and body together with your vitality or spirit? It means going inside ourselves to find out what creates your feelings, for it is these feelings, emotions, that guide you to what really matters. Like a signpost on that map. Once you know what is on the inside it’s so much clearer for the choices that you truly want to make. Ones you wont regret. The ones that are easy to live with.

The hidden gem in all decision making is the knowing you have a choice. Always. At any time. At any place. This truly has creation-like powers. It is creation if you think about it. In choosing, you create who you are and what you want or need to sustain yourself. You now know you have choices but sometimes you just don’t know how to make them or simply what to do. You can simply not see your options, it gets difficult, cloudy and you can get stuck. It's normal. You are a human being. Even robots get stuck from time to time.

Discovering more about yourself will assist you in how to make ‘feel good’ decisions. The power of choice does indeed set you free.

Make that choice. Be free. Be you.

Strawberry

What is your answer? What would you do if you are the man or woman dangling from that vine? Facing Death?

Let me share my view.

The strawberry represents the good things all around us. The vine is the timeline of life. I choose to celebrate the strawberry as the good things before me, always.

I can climb a vine. I can choose to confront the tiger above. Therefore, it may not represent my birth, only an adversity. The tiger below seems inevitable. Still, I have a choice as to which direction to move.

The mice are small, and therefore likely represent the range of myriad different details that life throws at us. I can deal with mice.

As I see it, this teaching shows us that we need only look for something very special, in any situation. Good things are all around us. We need only see them. They are there. They are everywhere around us. It's my choice to see or not to see.

I always look for strawberries. In business as in personal life. And guess what?

I’ve found many. What about you?

-WU-