The Choice is Yours

There’s a lot of great things about being a kid.

You don’t have to pay for stuff.
You get to lick the cake-mix bowl (a personal highlight for me).
You can actually tell people what you think.
You can build cool stuff from junk and grown-ups tell you it’s great.
Old people spoil you.
You can use the “I’m-just-a-kid-and-I-didn’t-know” line as a defence for pretty much anything.
And every day you do the best drawing ever in the history of the world.

On the other hand, what sucks about being eight is that you don’t get too many choices.

I always felt that vegetables (an their apparent value) were over-rated.
Homework?… a conspiracy created by teachers and parents to stop us kids from having fun.
Baths?… clearly a waste of water (I was ahead of my time)… yet my parents were determined for me to wash.
Go figure.
If it was up to me, I would have eaten chocolate cake for every meal, watched cartoons for fifteen hours a day, bathed on a monthly basis and had a pet lion.
Or at the very least, a monkey.

In hindsight, probably a good thing I wasn’t the boss of me back then.

Even though being a kid was (by and large) fun… I love being big more.
These days I don’t get called Jumbo (often) and every day I get to make lots of choices.
In fact, all the choices.

I am totally the boss of me.
The boss of my life.
The boss of my body.
The boss of my career.
The boss of my happiness.
And the boss of my future.

Even when the crappy, unexpected, narly things happen.. I’m still the boss of my future.
Because I’m the boss of my emotions.
And my reactions.
And my conversations.
And my attitude.
And my decisions.

Cool.

Nobody can make me have a bad day.
‘Cause they’re not the boss of me.
I can choose to let them bring me down… or I can choose to react differently.
I’ll go with different.
Situations, circumstances, challenges and events can’t make me have a bad day… ’cause they’re not the boss of me either.
I am.
Every day, in every situation.
Whether I know it or not.
Whether I feel like it or not.
I’m in charge.

Captain of the ship.
The SS Me.

Every day I have the choice of having a great day… despite what happens in that day.
Every day I have the choice of seeing the good… while others find the bad.
To learn, while others complain.
To love, while others hate.
To forgive, while other make themselves sick with resentment.
I have all those choices.

Yes, there are many things I can’t control.
Yes, bad things happen to good people.
Yes crap happens every day and no, the world’s not fair.
But the truth is, I can make my life harder or easier.
I choose easier.
I choose to cope.
I choose to thrive.
I choose a good attitude.
I choose to do different, think different, create different and be different.
I choose amazing.

What happens in my life affects me… but doesn’t define me.
My choices will define me… because that’s what I’ve decided.

I choose to be the boss of me.
And my life.

What do you choose?