Step 45 – You Decide
I recently watched a baking show on Netflix. It’s not that I’m a baker now (in fact, it’ been a while since I baked), but I love sweets and I love creative and passionate people (that’s the reason I also watch The Voice every season). I watched it just because I didn’t want to feel guilty eating ice cream. And there was one thing that struck me. The contest on the show was a great mirror of life.
You get a group of people, all from different backgrounds, with different pasts and different dreams (except for the one they share: to win a show), and you give them the same set of tools. And what’s surprising – everyone ends up with a different result. You give them the same ingredients, the same kitchenware, the same conditions and the same exact time – and there is no chance they will end up with the same cake. Some of them will make a great cake (but they won’t look or taste similar) and some of them will fail. If you didn’t measure your time right, if you overestimate or underestimate the conditions you were granted – you will fail.
And that’s how life works, even though some of you still want to argue about it. We all have the same tools, but we all make different choices. And so our lives look so different. I wanted a different lifestyle, so I gathered money that would help me to survive for a month and left. That was my choice that I don’t cry about, even when it gets really difficult. I don’t blame anyone; it was something I decided to do, so I can only blame myself. If I fail, it’s only on me. But if I win, it’s also on me. It’s not “luck”; it’s the amount of faith and work I put in. Every decision changes your life. Every decision shapes your life – being in this relationship, taking this job, buying this house, buying a car or living abroad. All that changes the current of your life. And these decisions are on you, as are the consequences. If you don’t like them and you’re constantly complaining, put your ass down and think about a different choice that will bring a different solution.
What I’m trying to say is – before you say that something is “so difficult”, “impossible”, “not for you”; that someone “is lucky”, look in the mirror and realize that what you just said is garbage. It’s a garbage pile of false conclusions. As I said at the beginning – we all get very similar (if not the same) tools. And now there is this decision to make – which direction I am choosing to go? Don’t look at others. What’s your decision…? Chasing your dreams is fucking scary and it’s very difficult, but the problem is that there is no easy way to find out if you can make your dreams your reality. You always get a choice – you’re going left or right, or straight or are you turning back again? You just have to decide, on your own with the full understanding that you’re responsible for every choice and that means you’re responsible for the way your life looks like now.
