“Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.” John C. Maxwell

Motivation Mondays: LIFE CHOICES

Choices are the hinges of destiny. Edwin Markham
Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever. Keri Russell
The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms. Neal Boortz
Some of our important choices have a time line. If we delay a decision, the opportunity is gone forever. Sometimes our doubts keep us from making a choice that involves change. Thus an opportunity may be missed. James E. Faust

PS: I update my blog posts regularly with new information and corrections. Do stop by again to check for new insights and to add your voice. Thank you! 🙂

CHOICE: What critical life choices have you made? The phone rang and even though I didn’t recognize the number on my caller ID, it looked familiar so I picked up the phone. On the other end, the caller spoke in a slow, sultry voice.  “Hello… please don’t hang up. In the next 30 seconds, I will share the most powerful information you need to hear this year.”  Immediately, my antenna for BS lit up. “I’ll show you how you can make $10,000 from your armchair, without batting an eyelid.” Sultry purred.  WTF! Of course, the devil on my left shoulder urged me to listen because hey, you never know. The quiet voice of reason on my right shoulder calmly took the phone out of my hand and placed it back on the receiver.  Not today…. Frankly, not any day soon will Sultry sell me parts of the Brooklyn Bridge.  Every day, in some fashion, we come up against such events in so many different versions. Some of the choices we make are for mundane things, while others are for very serious life changing matters. Whichever way we look at it,  we face daily decisions to choose a position and act on it. Some of our choices can change the trajectory of our lives and we view them as critical decisions. My decision to move to the USA was a critical move that meant leaving my family and friends behind in the UK and Nigeria to pursue my own interests. Some of my plans didn’t pan out but, my decision put me on a new life path with new experiences that continue to impact my life.

As a blog friend suggested to me, when I was mulling over my blog topic for this week, the choices we make fall into a wide range of categories. We find ourselves choosing a position on almost anything; our choices are professional, personal, even arbitrary. We make choices about career paths, marriage and motherhood or staying single. We choose to emigrate or stay local, to get healthy or not, to build new friendships and even relocate to new homes in another state. With each decision we make, there are consequences that we must face and sometimes they are quite unpleasant. But we all know that choices, like change, are a necessary part of life and if we don’t make them, we stagnate. Our choices don’t come with guarantees of success, and some of our choices can take us down a new road filled with opportunities, as well as broken dreams and washed up promises. But, we make them anyway because we must act or perish.  Baldwin’s advice in the story below begins with the admonition: Don’t Give Up. I agree.

Don’t Give Up…

The Choice Of Hercules by James Baldwin via readbookonline
When Hercules was a fair-faced youth, and life was all before him, he went out one morning to do an errand for his stepfather. But as he walked his heart was full of bitter thoughts; and he murmured because others no better than himself were living in ease and pleasure, while for him there was naught but a life of labor and pain.
As he thought upon these things, he came to a place where two roads met; and he stopped, not certain which one to take.
The road on his right was hilly and rough; there was no beauty in it or about it: but he saw that it led straight toward the blue mountains in the far distance.
The road on his left was broad and smooth, with shade trees on either side, where sang an innumerable choir of birds; and it went winding among green meadows, where bloomed countless flowers: but it ended in fog and mist long before it reached the wonderful blue mountains in the distance. Story contd below.

“It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” J. K. Rowling

Motivation Mondays: LIFE CHOICES

Your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent, and committed decision. Tony Robbins
It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions. Jim Rohn
I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

CHANCE: Did you take a calculated chance?  Choices include those we make after much reflection, those we take without thinking, and some we take as a calculated chance at something great. I think people who come up with inventions or scientific discoveries that revolutionize the world take calculated risks and we benefit. I also believe that people who enter artistic contests or go on reality TV shows take a calculated chance that the exposure might bring them fame and fortune. For some, it becomes the path to great success while others flounder and disappear. Even when we figure out a pathway that we believe will lead us from point A to point Z, it takes more than our game-plan to get there. We need to not only be persistent but also flexible and forgiving. Forgiving? What does that have to do with choices?  If you’ve spent any time with a successful, creative person, you’d get to hear about the rejections, the naysayers, and the plain and simple haters who tried to derail their dreams. It comes with the territory and we all have our own versions of such stories. Even our own family members can unwittingly derail our plans because they love us and want to shield us from public pain. We have to learn to forgive the mutterings of others and forgive ourselves too for opening the door to such things.  Don’t give in to the stuff. The truth is that we all need encouragement to pursue that pie in the sky dream. How would we ever know what might come of it if we don’t try? I think of Elon Musk and Tesla and Space X…. and so many other brilliant creatives who didn’t listen to people who told them their dreams were idiotic.  Don’t give in so easily…

Years back, when I was exploring career paths, I was very interested in dance, modeling, the creative arts and mass communications. I took dance classes at Alvin Ailey’s, acting classes and all sorts of other creative outlets. I enjoyed it but my parents didn’t. I come from a traditional family and my Dad wanted his kids to follow the professional path to success. Get an education! Become a teacher, lawyer, doctor, scientist and on and on he went. We followed his lead but I was never 100% sure that I was following my own heart. As the years flew by, a part of me grew frustrated and resentful and it has taken some time for me to get to the place where I had to let that go and forgive myself first for not saying: No, Dad, I’d rather do X… So, whether our choices to take a calculated chance lead us down a rabbit hole or on the brightest stage, forgiving ourselves for our missteps is crucial to our journey. Baldwin’s Hercules, in the story that continues below, knows to not give in. Don’t give in to others opinions about your heartfelt dreams. Listen. Speak up. Find a way to express yourself and go for it.

Don’t Give In…

Contd from above James Baldwin Story
While the lad stood in doubt as to these roads, he saw two fair women coming toward him, each on a different road. The one who came by the flowery way reached him first, and Hercules saw that she was as beautiful as a summer day.
Her cheeks were red, her eyes sparkled; she, spoke warm, persuasive words. “O noble youth,” she said, “be no longer bowed down with labor and sore trials, but come and follow me, I will lead you into pleasant paths, where there are no storms to disturb and no troubles to annoy. You shall live in ease, with one unending round of music and mirth; and you shall not want for anything that makes life joyous–sparkling wine, or soft couches, or rich robes, or the loving eyes of beautiful maidens. Come with me, and life shall be to you a day-dream of gladness.”
By this time the other fair woman had drawn near, and she now spoke to the lad. “I have nothing to promise you,” said she, “save that which you shall win with your own strength. The road upon which I would lead you is uneven and hard, and climbs many a hill, and descends into many a valley and quagmire. The views which you will sometimes get from the hilltops are grand and glorious, but the deep valleys are dark, and the ascent from them is toilsome. Nevertheless, the road leads to the blue mountains of endless fame, which you see far away on the horizon. They cannot be reached without labor; in fact, there is nothing worth having that must not be won by toil. If you would have fruits and flowers, you must plant them and care for them; if you would gain the love of your fellow men, you must love them and suffer for them; if you would enjoy the favor of Heaven, you must make yourself worthy of that favor; if you would have eternal fame, you must not scorn the hard road that leads to it.” Rest of Story Contd Below!

The details for Motivation Mondays are below. Join in! The themes for APR 2018/MAY 2018 are:

APRIL

03/04 – Women’s History Month, National Nutrition Month, Irish-American Heritage Month, American Red Cross Month, 08 International Women’s Day, World Kidney Day, 04 Academy Awards
03/11 – 11 Daylight Savings, 14 Pi Day, 15 World Consumer Rights Day, 17 St Patrick’s Day
03/18 – 19 St Joseph, 20 International Day of Happiness, 21 World poetry Day, 22 World Water day, 24 Earth Hour
03/25 – Palm Sunday, 29 Holy Thursday, 30 Good Friday, 31 Passover

MAY

05/06   –  01 May Day, 03, National Day of Prayer, 03 World Press Freedom Day, 04 Star Wars, 05 Cinco De Mayo
05/13  –  13 HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY,  16 Ramadan starts, 19 Armed Forces Day,
05/20  –   20 Pentecost Day,  23 World Turtle Day, 24 National brother Day
05/27  –   28 Memorial Day,  30 World MS Day,  31 World No Tobacco Day

Are You Looking for Ways to Stay Creative in 2018?

– Join the Daily Post Post-a-day or Post-a-week Challenge.

— Join the BlogHer Writing Lab

More Below
“Life is about choices. Some we regret, some we’re proud of. Some will haunt us forever. The message: we are what we chose to be.” Graham Brown

Motivation Mondays: LIFE CHOICES

So many roads. So many detours. So many choices. So many mistakes. Sarah Jessica Parker
Life presents you with so many decisions. A lot of times, they’re right in front of your face and they’re really difficult, but we must make them. Brittany Murphy
We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals. Stephen Covey

CHANGE: Which CHOICES  forced a change in you?  With our choices comes a certain amount of change. We make choices daily and it begins from the moment we open our eyes and decide to get out of bed. From there on, our brain kicks into overdrive and we spend the rest of the day … and the rest of our life choosing this, that and the other. We discard some along the way, reclaim others and get stumped by a few choices. Some choices open doors that lead us to phenomenal rewards, while others put our lives at peril. Some choices inspire pride and others great shame. Some of our choices take such a toll on our lives that we are either forced to make a change or one is made for us by others or the universe. An example that comes to mind is ADDICTIONS of any kind. Whatever we are addicted to will eventually take over our lives and perhaps ruin it. Even addictions to healthy things like exercise can lead to excessive workouts, injuries and some form of body dysmorphic disorder. Attachments to terrible addictions like taking drugs can kill us.

If we are forced to make a change, we must weigh the pros and cons and make our choices wisely. Smoking cigarettes was mine for many years but I kicked the habit using NLP hypnosis and never looked back. Preserving my health and wanting to see my children grow up forced me to make a change.  Truth is that we all experience ups and downs with some degree of success or failed outcomes throughout our lives. When we fail, some of us blame others forgetting the role we played in our failures.  We might attack those we think hurt us and then feel remorse later. While remorse is a helpful emotion, it must be used to move us forward to make better choices. What are you remorseful about? How did you move your life forward? On the flip side, when we succeed, some of us claim all the glory forgetting that no one achieves success on their own merit alone. Be proud but don’t forget your helpers. Recently, I won a month of April marathon challenge at my local gym by completing 267 biking miles. I was stoked but also proud of the team effort that got me there. There are helpers, angels, advisors and people of goodwill who help propel us forward to meet our goals. We are supported and encouraged to never give up. What life choices are you proudest of?  Which path would you have chosen from Hercules story? As Baldwin’s story affirms, Give it all you’ve got and Stay Upbeat.

Give it all you’ve got…

Contd from above. James Baldwin story…
Then Hercules saw that this lady, although she was as beautiful as the other, had a countenance pure and gentle, like the sky on a balmy morning in May.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Some call me Labor,” she answered, “but others know me as Virtue.”
Then he turned to the first lady. “And what is your name?” he asked.
“Some call me Pleasure,” she said, with a bewitching smile, “but I choose to be known as the Joyous and Happy One.”
“Virtue,” said Hercules, “I will take thee as my guide! The road of labor and honest effort shall be mine, and my heart shall no longer cherish bitterness or discontent.”
And he put his hand into that of Virtue, and entered with her upon the straight and forbidding road which leads to the fair blue mountains on the pale and distant horizon. The End.

Have a happy, peaceful and productive week ahead!

Any Zen Antics stories via

Positive Motivation Tip: Every day, we make small and large choices, embrace yours.

Motivation Mondays is open to anyone who wishes to share a motivational quote, photo, personal challenge or a post that encourages others to start the week on an upbeat note.
Basic Instructions: Each week, I will have a motivation word to help us create a response. (See listed words for the months above/below)
Email address: You may email or share your post as a comment and I will add it to the round-up of related posts. email it to: contact(@)mirthandmotivation(.)com
Category tag: – Share your post using Motivation Mondays
Twitter hashtag: – Use this on Twitter #MotvnM
Dedicated Page: There is a dedicated page for Motivation Mondays. It has the same instructions and will include other helpful tools and a link to the round-up
Facebook Page: MotivationOnMondays Join our page and add your post and/or any motivational piece you think will be helpful to others.
Facebook Community: We have a Facebook community forum to compliment the page. It serves as another way to share uplifting posts and thoughts. Please join in and add your voice.

Badge: – I created a fun badge using PicMonkey’s free photo editing tools. You can create your own, use WordPress’ integrated tool on your blog or you are welcome to use mine. (see dedicated page)
Tag: – Motivation Mondays
Hashtag: – #MotvnM

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PHOTO CREDITS/ATTRIBUTIONS: All Photos, Choice, Choices, Comparisons  via Pixabay,  AND/OR  via  Wikipedia…

Until Next Time…
Ask. Believe. Receive. ©
Elizabeth Obih-Frank
Mirth and Motivation
Positive Kismet