What Do You Choose?

One of the central themes behind Sail the Seven C's is the awesome power of choice each of us always has in front of us.  No matter what happens in life and no matter how much we might protest, we always have a choice in how we respond to life.  While we might wish it to be different, life rarely works out just like we want it to, and yet we might say who cares, since we can literally choose how we want to think about these things, what meaning to make of it all, what attitude to bring, even what to believe is true.

An example of this power of choice occurred when I drove with Kim across country, back to her parents' home for her last year in college.  Despite only having dated for three months, I could easily see myself spending the rest of my life with her if she would have me and yet there was an enormous, seemingly insurmountable challenge in front of us.  She grew up in a very religious home in which her faith was the very fabric of life for her and her family.  I on the other hand wasn't religious at all and despite months of study, found that I didn't believe a great deal of what she had been taught her entire life.  It was crazy for Kim to consider marrying a non-member.  I never imagined I would fall in love with a religious woman.  On the last night before arriving at her parents and saying goodbye, possibly forever and not wanting to leave anything unshared, I expressed all my love for her and my fear about our differing beliefs keeping us apart.  Her reply is still etched in my mind nineteen year later, "I will never let religion keep us from one another" she replied.  I knew right then she loved me as much as I did her.  I had to marry my one true love.  The obstacles and challenges we faced in the months, even years to follow were tremendous, complicated in large part by our family's efforts to 'compete, compare, control, criticize, complain, chase, and cling'.  Those details don't matter so much.  Yet we both kept coming back to the most powerful choice of all, that of love, over and over again, and that has proven to make all the difference.  We began to let go of our, and others', demands born of ego, of needing to be right, and knowing what's best.  Truth is in this one aspect of our life, we began to Sail the Seven C's together, despite the challenges we faced.

I often say that you could sum up all of life in just two words, Challenge; Choice.  Yet the bottom line is the challenge doesn't really matter all that much (heck we can't control the challenge anyway), only our choice matters, moment to moment, in the final analysis.  I know what choice Kim and I made.  So let me ask you, what do you choose to think about and focus your attention on when the challenges of life come your way?  Will it be the Seven C's or will it be principles born of love no matter what?