Choice

I spent the day yesterday glaring and making angry noises at my computer, and all the silly people on Facebook. 

Hardly productive.

Our area of the world has been in a bit of a deep freeze for the past few weeks.  January has been c-c-c-cold.  February is shaping up to be not much different.  We're in the middle of a "good old fashioned winter" which is to say lots of snow, lots of cold, lots of wind.  Which, around here, results in lots of road closures, lots of cancelled buses and closed schools.  Some people have been stuck in their houses for close to a week now, as closed roads keep them from going anywhere.  People are running out of groceries, small towns are running out of gas, and tempers are running high.

Yesterday was particularly bad in Dufferin - everything looked good in the morning, good enough to send the kiddies to school, but then one by one the roads started closing. White-outs everywhere, and then at 1pm the county declared a state of emergency, closed the schools, cancelled the afternoon buses, and all of a sudden there were hundreds of kids stranded at their schools.  Chaos ensued.

(Just a note - Dufferin is the county that we moved AWAY FROM 18 months ago, not the one that we currently live in.  However, we still live very close to the border of the county, so it's road closures tend to affect us, although not nearly in the way that they used to.)

Many parents spent the day griping about the decisions the school board had made to send the kids to school. Run the buses, keep the schools open, keep exams running in highschools. "It's not safe!" they all shouted.  "Call the media, tell them how the board is risking the safety of our kids!"  "Our kids have to write exams, they have no choice but to go to school."

And that's when I started making my angry noises at the screen.

Here's the thing - you, I, whoever, we ALWAYS have a choice.


I tried to explain this to some people yesterday, and it fell on deaf ears.

If you don't feel that it's safe to put your kids on the bus, despite what the school boards say, then DON'T DO IT.  Your choice.  Not the school board, not the school, YOU.  You even have a choice to write exams or not.  If you feel like your children are being asked to RISK THEIR LIVES to go write an exam, then you need to decide what is more important - their life, or their exam. You could drive them, or, if they miss it they could potentially write it later, take their mark without their exam, or worst case, retake the course. All of these things are better options than potentially getting killed on your way to school on treacherous roads. It is YOUR choice.

This is a lesson for yesterday, and ultimately, for life. 

I think too many people sit around and blame others for what is happening in their lives.  They blame chance, or circumstance, and wallow in their lives, thinking there is no way to change things.

Untrue.  There is always a way.  We always have a choice to make a positive change.  Sometimes you have to get creative, go way out of your comfort zone, ask for help.  But there is always a choice to be made.

Sometimes, granted, we can not control the things that happen to us.  We can't control the weather, accidents happen, people die suddenly, some things are out of our control.  But we CAN control how we react to those things. We can wallow in them, or choose to take a step in a different direction.

There is no such thing as "I have no choice."  You ALWAYS have one.  You are the maker of your own destiny.  The trailblazer of your own path. The person in charge of YOUR life is YOU.

And the person in charge of my life is me. Every choice that I have made, and then we as a family has made has brought us to where we are.  IT IS NO ACCIDENT that we live in the greatest place in the world (in our mind, anyway) and are stupidly happy.  We made it so.

So if you're unhappy with some facet of your life?

Change it.

YES, you can. 

Find the thing that sings to your soul, and then make a move towards it.

Even if it is a teeny tiny move.  Its STILL a move. A step in the right direction.

Somedays it will feel like you've hardly moved at all.  Some days you may move backwards. But tomorrow is a new day, and another chance to move forward again.

Some days you win, some days you learn.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

YOU, and only you can make the choice.

The choice to be happy lies in YOUR hands.

So go, be happy!



(And thanks to Marianne, who bugged me about blogging again.  Blogging makes me happy!  xoxox)