Making up my mind is one of the most challenging aspects of life for me. Below are a series of different people’s writings that have all come together for me on this day to guide my decision making. Am interested in your reflections and how you work through making up your mind.
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“In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” ~Theodore Roosevelt
We always want to do the right thing, but we do the wrong thing when we do not make a decision about what to do. Decisions have power. Decisions have force. They usually take us to the exact place we need to be, exactly the way we need to get there. It is the wavering back and forth that is dangerous. It places us at the mercy of events; we fall prey to the choices people make for us. Since time and opportunity wait for no one, our lives will not stand still until we figure out what to do. The rightness of a decision is based on our ability to make the decision. When we weigh what we want against what we will have to do, a decision can be an effortless event. We must know what we will and will not do, what we can do and choose not to do; and decide in harmony with the things we know. The freedom from making a decision can only come after we have made the decision.
Today I decide to be free from all decisions.
~Acts of Faith, Daily Meditation for People of Color by Iyanla Vanzant
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Life is a matter of attitude. It becomes what we bring to it. I find myself vacillating between the very poles Paul describes. At pole one, I take the position that this particular thing is good but this other thing is bad. So my days are either wonderful or terrible depending on whether they take the shape I will for them. At pole two, I take the position that everything that happens is life-giving somehow, even when I can’t see how. Then God is in the crevices where I never thought to look. “Make up your mind,” Paul seems to say, “and it will change your whole life.”
~Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir by Sr. Joan Chittister
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Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything.
~Father Pedro Arrupe
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What if every decision that I make is based on a foundation of Love given and recieved in Truth and Kindness? What kind of world will I be?
