It is all about choices always

I am writing a blog after a very long time. The last few months I have been busy knowing my self, who I am and what I can be. Though we spend years and years at school and college, we seldom learn the art of thinking right. I have been fortunate to have met some amazing people, read some mind blowing books and learnt or rather started the process of thinking right. I have learnt life is always about choices and this I am certain about. I laugh at myself now for all the times when I said 'well, I did not have a choice so I am here'. Even not choosing is a way of choosing. Confused? For example: You are in a job you hate, but you still go to office each day. What excuse do you give for working? You have a family to support, you have committments to meet to name a few common ones. But actually you had a choice...you had the choice to quit without giving a damn to what happens to your family/committments, you had a choice to give up and run away, you had a choice to stay on and suffer in the job. You chose the last option yourself, no one could have done anything if you had chosen either the first or second options! But its our nature to blame everyone and everything around when things do not go our way and to take credit when all is hunky dory. However, the good news is its never late to learn and change. The impact of taking responsibility for your actions/ decsions boosts your self confidence beyond your imagination. Today, I can say with a lot of pride for all the good decisions I have made and have absolute acceptance for all the not so good decsions as well. There is no more self blame, punishing myself, feeling guilty. There is only aceeptance - yes, It was a mistake. I have learnt x, y, z from it and I know I am never again going to do the same mistake. Life is not a rat race. No one is ever going to keep a list of the good or bad choices you made. The only thing that matters is did you learn from it or not? and it does not even matter if you learnt as soon as you did it or 10 years post that? The important thing is you learnt. I no longer wait for someone else to say 'hey, its ok...this happens to all of us'. Rather I say that to myself and funny thing is the comfort you feel when you console yourself is greater than a 100 people saying the same thing to you. I am now alert from the start of the day because I know that every minute life is presenting me with choices and I want to do the right thing most of the times. Simple thing like being nice to a stranger, helping a needy one on the road, giving a smile to a baby, giving way to someone in the lift, giving an extra tip to the waiter, buying coffee for your colleague, sharing a nice email with friends....the list is endless. In each of these situations we are making a choice. They are never random actions. There are no random actions. You always have a choice and best thing is you can change what you choose anytime. Its never too late! Like the wise turtle says in Kung fu Panda 'There are no coincidences.....'