“Pain is temporary.  It may last for a minute, or an hour or a day but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place.  If I quit however, it will last forever.”

We are not programmed to fail.  Failure is an emotion created by humans for humans.  Let me clarify that, for adults.  Our egos have programmed our thoughts so that if we state we have failed, we can give ourselves an out, an excuse.  We excuse ourselves not to try it again.  We belittle ourselves and tell ourselves that we just can’t do it so that our egos can go on driving our lives.  Let me prove it to you.  Can you walk?   When we were toddlers and learning to walk we fell, a lot, we cried, we went back to crawling again but we kept at it until we could walk on our own.  You didn’t think to yourself, oh I’m a failure, I’m not good enough or pretty enough or smart enough.  Your genetically programmed brain told you to keep getting up no matter how many times you fell and eventually you learned to walk. You made a decision, that I am not going to crawl anymore.  I’ll say that again, you made a decision.

I have been in hospital rooms to witness the two most awesome parts of human life.  I have watched babies take their very first breaths of life and loved ones take their last. The duality of that is mind blowing if you stop and think about it.  The gifts of life and the human experience in this world, and the rebirth of spirits and souls passing into the next are something to behold.   I’m reminded of the quote, “What we are is God’s gift to us.  What we become is our gift to God.” – Eleanor Powell.  Why the reflection? Why is this observation so important?  The answer is no matter how many inspiring words I write, I’m going to have a bad day, week, or month.  I am going to get angry and bummed out; I will focus on all the things I don’t have in my life and get hung up on the lack ofs instead of the abundances of the great things I do have in my life.  It’s human nature we all do it.  Hey, it’s okay, the key is not to let it eat us up and knock us off course.  We are on a journey to a destination that we maybe can’t see yet.  Trust and believe in yourself that you will make the right decisions.  As it’s said, I never lose, I either win or I learn.

One of my readers told me that I write as if I had 6 months to live.  Think about how powerful that would be, how much would that drive you?    It’s not, it is what it is.  I hate that quote.  Life is what you want it to be.  The lives we choose are shaped by the meanings and attachments we give to the occurrences that happen to us.  In the title of this blog I said to make a decision.     Decide to live your life with a sense of urgency, to live a fuller life.  Yes it’s that simple, not easy, simple.  In the words of the great Dr. Seuss- “You have brains in your head.  You have feet in your shoes.  You can steer yourself any direction you choose.  You’re on your own.  And you know what you know.  And YOU are the one who’ll DECIDE where to go!”