Each and every person alive today has one or more components in their life they want to change, improve or maybe even eliminate. Perhaps its weight loss, maybe its getting out of debt, building more rewarding relationships, advancing your career or going back to college. It might be an addiction that’s been stealing the joy and peace out of your life. Regardless of the challenge you are facing or considering facing. There is one component that is required to overcome the challenge.

It is a simple principle that we can engage in daily. No advanced level of education is required, it’s not expensive, but it’s not always easy. No one wants to hear it, because we all want a quick easy answer, we all have a tendency to want to blame someone or something else. Everyone wants to hear a new and dynamic approach to age old problems that humans have been facing for centuries. The simple solution to our struggles is…… our choices! We have the opportunity to make numerous choices every day. Paul Tournier, a noted Swiss psychiatrist, said, “Perhaps the most powerful and unused gift from God is choice.”

Not the earth shattering news you were hoping for. Nothing profound in this principle. Yet the ability to make good choices on a regular basis seems to elude us all. It is a challenge for all humans to say no to ourselves or to push ourselves to do the things we should. We want to be comfortable, we want pleasure, security, acceptance, excitement, prosperity, recognition and control. All of these are normal human desires. The problem comes when we continue to say yes, more than we should or we too often say yes to things when we need to say no, or we say no to things that we should be saying yes to. I.E. "No I’m not going to exercise because I don’t feel like exercising."  "Yes I am going to have another donut." or "Yes I am buying that brand new vehicle and taking on a new $600.00 monthly payment!" which means I am saying no to a larger contribution to my retirement account each month. It would benefit us all to remind ourselves that when we say yes to something, we are saying no to something else.

Although this is a simple life concept, it is not easy. Much like the old phrase, “If you want to lose weight, eat less than you burn” Simple concept, but definitely not easy. Making good choices is difficult that’s the reason many people don’t do it. However although it is challenging to make good choices it is encouraging to know that we do have control over our lives through our choices. No, we can’t control everything that happens to us, but we do get to choose how we respond to what happens. Yes, innocent people do suffer due to the crimes of others and yes, bad things do happen to good people and yes, people will lie to us, steal from us, betray us and maybe abuse us. All of these things are unfair and painful. Yet, even when we are victimized or betrayed we still have a choice to make. We can choose how we respond to these trials in our lives. We can choose to let them tear us down and stop us, or we can decide to use the hard times in our lives to strengthen us and enlighten us.