Your Story, Your Choices

How to Live Life Like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book

Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash

Remember Choose Your Own Adventure stories? The series of role-playing books were some of my favorites as a child. I’d check them out at my elementary school library, aching in anticipation of reading. What adventures lay hidden inside? What mysteries would I solve? I spent many afternoons nestled between the pages, contemplating which choice to make at the end of each chapter. Option A or Option B?

Confession: I always went with my first choice, then instantly read the other choices after. I wanted to see if I’d made the right decision. I reflected on which storyline worked out best.

Life doesn’t give us that luxury though, does it? When we face a choice, we can’t jump ahead pages to see which is the better outcome.

Each day, we face choices. Some are small, some big. We think about the big ones more because they seem to predict a clearer path to our futures. Take the job? Buy the house? Go back to school? Choices like this promise to lead to something big because they come with significant risk. Taking the job means leaving an old one. Buying the house, going back to school . . . those choices affect our bank accounts and our time. Will the risk be worth it?

Are we up for the task? What if we fail?

What if the choices are so big, we can’t see past them? How to care for a sick loved one, how to choose treatment for illness, should we end a relationship?

It's not only the significant decisions, either. Small ones are just as powerful. Taking a new route to work might inadvertently prevent a car accident. Choosing to eat at one restaurant over another might mean the difference between food poisoning or not.

The trouble is, if you consider your choices long enough, you’ll overthink it. Will I be right? What if I’m wrong? What if I make a mistake? What if, what if, what if?

Worry is imagination misused.

None of us have a crystal ball. We can fret over our choices day and night, write out lists of positives and negatives, obsess over it, drive our friends and families crazy talking about it. But no matter how extensively researched, how many times we've analyzed the subject, there is always the risk of making a wrong decision.

Uncertainty is a fact of life.

During my time in law school, my goal was fixed on one job, and one job only. I had dedicated an entire career before becoming a lawyer to nonprofits and working with young children in the fields of education and social work. Naturally, I had the expectation that would be the path I would pursue as a lawyer as well. For years, I interned and worked in this field, waiting for one particular job I thought would change my life.

Long story short: after four years of law school and another four years after, I was finally offered the dream job I thought I wanted. I still remember the day. Amidst the pandemic, I found myself on Zoom, seated at my kitchen table, when an incredibly significant person extended a unique opportunity to me.

And I declined the offer.

Sometimes, even our choices are unpredictable, just like life. My peers, shocked at my choice, questioned why I’d said no. To tell you the truth, I shocked myself.

Looking back, I realize I’d said no because I needed a plot twist. I came to the realization after years of desiring one thing, that I truly, did not. What seemed like a good idea once no longer did. My life had taken many twists and turns up to that point. Deaths in the family, a major accident for a loved one, and other unexpected challenges changed the trajectory of my life. Those events also changed my view. Life, I’d learned, was more than checking off boxes or taking only one path. I could do more and be more. I could write my own adventure.

CONCLUSION:

You control your story. Which story do you want to live? While plot twists are inevitable, we can’t spend our time worried about the what ifs. Instead, ask yourself, if you were a character in your favorite novel or movie, how would the story end? What life do you really want to lead? What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Three weeks after I declined the job, I was presented with another opportunity. It was for a job I’d applied for, on a whim, late one night on LinkedIn. The application was a small choice, a "why the hell not" one I didn't anticipate would result in anything.

Except it did. That small choice of hitting the apply button on a whim gave me a new opportunity. A chance to spread my wings.

Each day is a new chance at living a different story. Don’t get stuck fretting over if you are making the right choice.

Instead, enjoy the journey and embrace your unwritten chapters.

Till next time,

Sarah

AKA A Busy Lady

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