Choices, Making, and Not Making.

Today I contemplated choices and the affect they have on people when you make them/ don't make them. As I say quite often when people want a quote on life, "Life is about choices. True happiness comes when we realize that good choices bring joy and bad choices bring sorrow." What brought this around was a lesson today on service and how random acts of service can really change a person's day. And how when we see an opportunity to serve, and don't take it, we can really change their lives in a not very progressive way.
I realized today that the choices we make always affect somebody. Sometimes directly, and sometimes not. But we are never the only ones affected by the choices that we make. But sometimes it's not what we choose to do, but what we choose not to do. For example, the little old lady crossing the street with groceries. She's obviously struggling and it's much too easy to ignore her and go on with your day, but what if you didn't? What if you pulled over, gave her a ride and helped her to her door? You could change her entire day, week, month, or entire outlook on life and people. What seems so small to us can make a life changing difference in somebody else's life. All we have to do is take the initiative and do what we know is right.
Speaking of right choices. I've seen lives that have been affected by one choice. Like a family member who decided to give into peer pressure and destroy his life with drugs. He would've been a very successful, wonderful man if he didn't make that one choice. It's horrible, isn't it? But I've also seen choices that just have amazing domino affects. Like my grandfather's choice to move to Bountiful, UT caused my mother to meet my father and things fell in place from there. But also there are choices that we continuously make. Like upholding moral standards of all kinds. It's not an easy thing to do, but boy am I glad I do it. Because by making these constant choices, I feel like I'm always in the right place at the right time. I feel like I'm deserving of the many things that I have. And I know that my life will be better in the future because of the habits I'm building and the way I'm living now.
I've noticed that when it comes to other people's choices, I get very scared and protective. Because I feel I know what's right (not to sound like a know it all or anything like that) and when they choose the opposite of that I sit back and bite my fingernails afraid of what's going to happen next. Because people's choices can affect their moods and personalities and their entire futures. And as I mentioned previously, in Rachel World, everybody does what they should. And so to close, make good choices, because you don't want to shatter the naive picture that I have of life. That'll be a very sad day indeed when it happens.
Determinately,
Rachel