The Choice Is Yours, You Make The Choice

Some words and phrases have lives of their own.

"It's a choice. You make (have ) the choice." 

Two sentences. Very few words. 

A single word, "choice", that changes dramatically when the words "you make" or "you have" precede it.

Simple word "choice" and no real negativity implied .... until you're placed in a life situation where the "circumstances" surrounding and possibly implementing this word can hurt, harm or even destroy life as you know it.

Unbelievably powerful statement especially when "choice" is not between "which choice to make" but "if", "what" and "when" a "choice" is made.

There can be deep and life affecting interpretation based on who you are, where you live, how you live and what you interpret these statements to mean.  

In this case, the words keep resounding in my mind as I move through life and am faced with decisions, many of them until very recently, considered to be not capable of considering let alone having to decide between or among.

Life has changed. The resounding and ringing in my ears applies to today and often interupts my forward movement as it conjers up the harsh and destructive spoken and written words by some for the "choices" we were making and made.

A heavy burden I try to lay down, try to set aside and sometimes succeed. It remains, however, and is taken on sometimes unknowingly and sometimes undesired through words and actions about "choices" then and now.

The person making the statement has known a life of privilege from birth through adulthood.They deserve what they have and work hard to get and keep it.

The person, me, this was said to, also was privileged for several years, but tried to teach the lesson of walking in another's shoes before determining how they should walk. 

I knew personal sacrifice; making decisions when the "choices" were not what was wanted. I had good training. I know I passed that along to my youngest as we walked the path together and made the sacrifices together through the choices we made.

We grow accustomed to privilege. 

We grow accustomed to any move beyond where we've been. 

It's the coming down, let alone the crashing, that few understand.

It's the not seeing that for some, life doesn't  provide opportunities, possibilities and the doors opening without challenges and consequences.

Or, that life interupts, interferes or just simply doesn't move past where we think we want to be, want to go or want to do.

Does this person have major life challenges? Quite a few.

What they've not had is everything or almost everything removed, taken away or needed to provide for those they love and not able to replace or even substitute. 

Major life interruptions; major life changes remove the "choice" from the "change".

Moving up and down the scale of "privilege" isn't always a choice. Sometimes the ascent or descent is more of a spinning than a climb and sometimes the inability to fully control movement isn't within your scope of ability or action.

Sometimes it's life's way of providing situations to learn and then to teach; to experience and to remember and reflect clearer than we could have without that first hand personal involvement.

For the two of us, we move forward ever learning from the past and the present.

The medical challenges, the harm done by others who found fault and the losses daily and cumulative, continue to be turning points in lives we live daily and have turned adversity into positive focuses.

Your life is and will be beyond the boundaries of the daily challenges and inability to see an end or even remember fully where the beginning actually was.

From your unique experiences you will find ways to beneift yourself and others.

You retain what others can not understand -- personal life changing experiences from a vantage point that cannot be bought or sold, cannot be moved into and out of just by getting up, moving away and on with your life. 

All I ask now is what I asked then....do not see my life or other's from your point of view. You have choices with few limitations or at least you have choices.

 I and others who have walked this path know life isn't about choices, it's about how you look at, how you handle life and what you do, as always, for others and for yourself that are the true Privileges & Choices in life.