Diversity Of Choices

I’m sitting here trying to decide whether to go to Starbucks this morning or just sit at my comfortable desk at home and write. I am so grateful that I have two wonderful choices where I will enjoy my dark roast coffee on this beautiful day. I’m choosing to stay at home. 

Have you ever thought about the choices you’ve made in your lifetime? I’ve made a lot of choices in my many years of life. Some were maddening, and some were quite good!

Upon your birth, your parents will decide or had already decided on your name. You had no choice in that silly middle name they had chosen from a favorite great, great aunt on your mother’s side of the family who was always telling dirty jokes. It’s just something that you will hide the rest of your life and be forced to spell it out when you apply for a job or a passport.

Because your parents may have been of two different races, you had no choice in your nationality. Your hillbilly father may have been born and raised in the hills of Kentucky and, while serving his country, married a beautiful young woman from Japan. Or you may have been born out of wedlock never knowing your true father and mother – only your adopted parents.

Because your parents may be devout Christians, they may have raised you to be the same sect of Christian that they know and love and grew up with. Or if you were born in Indonesia, your chances of being a Muslim is about 95%. Any way you look at it, you did not have a choice in your religion. Depending on how dedicated and devout you may be, you will grow up defending the doctrines, rituals, and dogma of your religion that was chosen for you. And you may even pass it on to your own children.

The food that is chosen for you in your early years will depend on what your parents eat every day. My Japanese mother made great rice, soba noodles, and miso soup. She had to cook country fried foods and potatoes for my hillbilly father. As I got older, I ate more of the Japanese food and less fried foods.

Some choices are out of our control. Some we can change and some we cannot. As you grow older, you will either become open-minded or it will stay closed in a tiny world surrounded by a large one – a self-imposed, unlocked cage. You can stay in that tiny world not knowing what the rest of the world does, or thinks, or eats, or prays to. Your choices in life will be very limited. An open mind has infinite choices available.

Which life will you choose?

I will always choose dark roast, unless I’m traveling. I just got back from Scotland and the best I could do there was an Americano (a watered-down version of my dark roast). But, I am not complaining because I got to see Scotland! Slàinte!