Are You Picking The Correct Choice?

"There are 2 primary choices in life: to simply accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them." - Dennis Waitley

I was recently standing in a dreadfully long, slow moving security line at an airport. One would think I would be so numb to the course that the "long and slow moving" part wouldn't be an question any longer. Certain days it isn’t, but this day, almost everything about the "long and slow moving" component was an problem with me. As I was seemingly inching my way along, I happened to look behind me for what had to be a small fraction of a second. It took just a few moments to register, but my mind was telling me that something just wasn’t quite "normal" concerning what I saw. Now, we have all been in this position. You would like to stare once more at whatever caught your eye - but you don’t want to be too conspicuous, right? You don’t want to get caught staring at something - or worse, someone. Therefore I did my absolute best non-obvious casual spin of my head behind me and it became rather obvious why I wanted to look again.

Standing there was a youthful boy approximately the age of 10 or so. To stare at his features, you'd imagine he was an advertisement child for a Norman Rockwell painting - red curly hair, freckles and all. He looked up at me with his instantly infectious grin, and when our eyes met I just said, "Howdy, pardner!" He quite warily acknowledged my welcoming, and that is when I acknowledged that this wasn't just a few conventional kid. Much to my shock, protruding from the tops of BOTH of his Nike running footwear were 2 titanium legs. As if that weren’t adequate to obtain my notice, there was not anything below his left elbow where his arm was "supposed" to be. Well, we ambled along for quite awhile in that line before I could gather up the braveness to ask him where he was headed. He informed me he was going to go see his grandma in Missoula, Montana, for a 7 days. I asked him what he was seeing do up there, and he said he hoped to do some fly fishing and ATV riding with his grandpa. All of a sudden, the security line didn’t seem so long.

Before he went his way and I went mine, I finally asked him if he had any idea how many citizens he moved on a every day basis. I could tell from his response he was far too humble and naive to be aware of what I was asking. Therefore I only said, "Well, you sure motivated one today. Have a magnificent journey, and catch some lunkers."

You see, it dawned on me that this little MAN has more problems to deal with before he gets out of bed every day than I have had in my entire 56 years on this world. What was so obvious was that he wasn’t about to accept his circumstances as they existed. It was very clear he had previously accepted the task for taking his situation and state and DETERMINING WHAT HIS REALITY WAS GOING TO BE. What a grand lesson! The teachings are all around us each and every day if we are open to seeing them.

And what about us? What options do we make in our careers? It’s amusing when you think about the reality that the only selection we don’t have is not to make choices. Let’s decide wisely.