LIFE’S LESSONS
By Henrylito D. Tacio
“The 3 C’s of life: choices, chances, changes. You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change.” – Unknown
Those who have read Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, the scene below is rather very familiar:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where…” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
It simply means life is a matter of choice. Every day, we make choices; sometimes, the choices we make are great and, in some instances, they are awful. In The Light in the Heart, author Roy T. Bennett pointed this out: “Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.”
When we are born into this world, we are given which direction we want to follow. Our parents are our role models. Our teachers give us some specifics and instructions. Our friends and colleagues provide us with some inputs and insights. But the final choice is ours. They can share their thoughts but the choice we make is up to us.
Even in the name of love, it’s still a matter of choice. There are those who stay single, and there are those who go for love – despite all the pains and struggles the person must experience. Most people prefer to follow the path of love.
Veronica Roth, author of Allegiant, speaks for all people in love when she puts these words into one of the characters: “I fell in love with him. But I don’t just stay with him by default as if there’s no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me.”
Dr. Kathleen Hall, founder of the Stress Institute and the Mindful Living Network, is right! “In every single thing you do, you are choosing a direction. Your life is a product of choices.” To which Hollywood actor Graham Brown also stated about our life’s choices: “Some we regret, some we’re proud of. Some will haunt us forever. The message: We are what we chose to be.”
But it doesn’t mean that we must be stuck with the choices we make. There is always a second chance. “How can we expect people to change, if we don’t give them the chance to?” asked Marissa Meyer in her novel, Renegades.
Bestselling American author Adam Silvera pinpointed this out, too, in his novel, They Both Die at the End: “Yes, we live, or we’re given the chance to, at least, but sometimes living is hard and complicated because of fear.”
But I like most the thoughts of American author Kelseyleigh Reber. The author wrote in If I Fail: “That is life, isn’t it? Fate. Luck. Chance. A long series of what-ifs that lead from one moment to the next, time never pausing for you to catch your breath, to make sense of the cards that have been handed to you. And all you can do is play your cards and hope for the best, because in the end, it all comes back to those three basics. Fate. Luck. Chance.”
Chances are, we must change if we want to be better. “Your life does not get better by chance,” American author and motivational speaker Jim Rohn once said. “It gets better by change.” Another wise man said, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
The permanent thing in this world, so goes a saying, is change. You may be 20 years old now but 10 years later, you will be 30. The fresh roses you are holding now will be withered a day later.
We should not be afraid of change. We should not stress ourselves too much because no matter how bad the situations are, they will change. We may lose something good when we try to change things but, in the end, we may gain something better.
Eric Roth, in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay, has reminded us: “For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it.
“I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.”
Sometimes, we are content with what we have. We live within our comfort zone. We don’t want to venture. We don’t aim to go beyond the horizon that has to be explored. We fear the consequences that it may bring if we change our daily routines. Holding onto something that is good for us now may be the very reason why we don’t have something better.
The world becomes a better place to live because of the people who try to change our banal perceptions about life and living. The words of Rob Siltanen, founder and chief creative officer of advertising agency, Siltanen and Partners, come to mind: “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The one who sees things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.
“You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
Change starts from our minds, from ourselves. “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself,” Russian writer Leo Tolstoy said. German-born theoretical physicist Albert Einstein thinks so, too. “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking,” he said.
Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said it all: “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” – ###
