Recognize and Embrace the Power Within You! Let’s Take a Look at the Role of Choice, Chance, and Change and How They Can Affect Your Life!

I came across this meme and was captured by it’s simplicity of message on a complex and sometimes overwhelming thing called life. While it spoke to me, I wanted to take it to the next level and look at each of the three “C”s separately.

Choice:

I want everyone to stop and really consider what this means. First and foremost, to me, it means freedom. It means being able to chose between more that one thing. Why is this so important to consider? Well, when you think of it, not everyone has a choice in everything.

There are countries where women are still second class citizens and choice has actually been removed from their immediate reach. I think of what is happening right now in Afghanistan and my heart breaks.

Whether it be the freedom of choice to walk down a street safely, to choose what you want to say, to eat, or wear, to have the right to go to school, be who you are, worship the way you want, or love who you want. It can be gone in a minute. Boom. Just like that and choice is gone.

In our western culture, we take choice for granted. We can choose the where and when and why. I realize the inequalities in race, culture, gender, and any other societal restrictions, but it’s not Kabul. We have the rights and the ability to speak our own truth and live how we choose. That is not only a sought after freedom, wars are fought on less, it’s also a privilege that is protected by laws.

Being aware and exercising that gift of choice is what makes life move forward. You can choose to barricade yourself in a dark room with video games but it won’t make any difference in the world and won’t help you grow in life. To me that is mere existence.

Taking choice one step further into your world is paramount in shifting your focus, challenging the so called ‘norm’, and hopefully making the world a little more tolerable.

Chance:

Is chance a gamble? Is it predestined? or a probability?

To me, taking a chance means stepping outside of your square box where you’ve been taught certain things and been fed a diet of mommy, daddy, the media, the powers that be… Do you know what I mean here? Your beliefs are a foundation of who you are. All the teachings and subliminal messaging that floods your brain, makes up your core values and beliefs. The question is: can you step past that?

Can you accept the idea of LGBTQ+ and that they are individuals with love in their hearts, who feel just you and me, and are real people. If your teachings are averse to this, can you step away and take a chance to exercise acceptance? How about challenging your core thoughts about people of color, or different religions? Are they all bad because they’re different?

To do something different is not easy. If you were taught that certain ethnic groups are evil, those beliefs are ingrained but you can make take a chance and question that so called “reality”.

To take that chance takes guts and isn’t always welcome. Taking a chance may require you to go against everything you thought you knew. Taking a chance may be scary but it may also be necessary for you to grow as an individual.

Taking a chance, means making a choice.

Wow! Powerful stuff. Can you seize the freedom to take a chance that may not be popular or status quo?

The hippies did it in the 1960’s. Civil Rights advocates did it in 1950’s–and continue to this day. Black Lives Matter did in in 2020. The list goes on… it can include things like securing the vote for women, to fight climate change, to fight for the rights of religious freedoms, to listen and learn the true history lessons of your own country through Indigenous talks of Reconciliation…

It’s all about taking a chance.

It’s all about making a choice.

Change:

This is not something that happens over night. There are still fights going on for personal freedoms and recognition. What has happened over time though is the greater sharing of information, idealisms, and passions. This sharing brings like minded people together to challenge what is and what was and what will come.

We all have our personal opinions of where change needs to happen and how we need to spur it on. But, before you jump on a bandwagon, take your time, know the issues, and consider the complexities, and the politics of the issue. Educate yourself otherwise you could end up falling flat on your face.

The world is a topsy-turvy ever changing live entity. To make a choice to step out of your comfort zone and take a chance to question what you’ve always believed to be true, can end up in a profound change in your life. Who knows what’ll happen? I don’t, that’s for sure, but I do know what’ll happen if everyone stays in the dark playing video games and it aint’ a pretty picture.

Auntie Lesson:

Choice/Chance/Change can be small and be just as powerful and meaningful. You don’t need to march in the streets or get up on a soapbox, nope, it’s about embracing your own choice to take that chance to make a change,not only your own life, but perhaps someone else’s too, better, different, richer, fuller. Your choice. xo

Choice is a personal freedom that we all have. How you employ choice can bring on chances for change. How powerful is that? Pretty cool that we have that within us, eh?

Your choice could be as simple as smiling at a stranger. That choice could be the only positive that person sees that day. Think about it.

Chance encounters mean making a choice too. It can be kindness or a shock to the system that spurs a choice and change. It doesn’t have to be worldwide or overwhelming.

Small steps grow into large leaps. Make a tiny step and choose to see something from someone else’s point of view–away from your own bias–maybe something will change within YOU.

Have a great week everyone. xoxo.