Live by Design – Options
Nothing is more important than choosing the right life options for ourselves.
Life is all about making choices. Some are easy to make like what to wear, what to eat and some that require a deeper level of thought like choosing your career, job, relations.
All of us face this dilemma of making the right choice and this can be stressful and overwhelming. Some have figured it out, some are still trying, and then there are those who have given up have decided to live with the only option available.
Life is full of options but often we take the first one available to us. Favourite excuse being “I have no other options” or “this is the best option”. This could be because we probably have given up and surrendered to the situation and the next available option seems to be the best option available to us
How many of us take the first available job justifying ourselves that this is the best available option that exists, just because we are frustrated in the current one. Honestly, I have done that mistake and learnt it the hard way by choosing an option which was even worse than the previous one and I was stuck.
It’s convenient to justify our decisions but do you really believe that there are no other options?
I believe that is false especially after my experience. There are always options available, it’s just that we don’t look for them.
And then there are those who have bias towards an option. Remember the last time you came up with the idea for something and were stuck with that idea and would try to scheme things in a way to choose that option. If you haven’t done that then your kids would have done that to you : )
Choices we make defines the path we choose in life and what could be worse than walking on a path which was not ours to take. Imagine that you want to go to destination “A” and the path leads to destination “B” and when you reach that destination you realize that this is not what you were going for and unlike computers, you can’t just reboot and restart.
Options exist some are hard, some easy and some crazy. In all honesty, I would prefer the crazy ones and they are usually the ones that are out of box ideas that excite, energize and challenge you.
Often the options that are present are either given to us by someone else or the unexplored ones and we must choose one. Making a choice is one thing but before that what is more important is having the right options to choose from. It’s not just about choosing one from many but also about Options that you have explored and designed for yourself. Options that give you a sense of purpose and are in harmony with your life goals.
Making choices can be intimidating especially when it comes to choosing from various life options, but if those options are the ones that you have designed for yourself then it really won’t be that difficult choosing one.
Rolo may in his book “Man’s Search for Himself” says “The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it’s conformity.” It’s conformity, people acting like everyone else without knowing why, without knowing where they’re going.
Most of us conform to the acceptable standard of doing and believing what everybody else does and believe. If I were to ask why you are stuck in your current job, most of us will not have a real answer to this. Off course most of us will say paying bills, rent, EMI’s, taking care of family and much more. Is that really the reason?
I am not suggesting you leave your job if you are one of them. What I am really suggesting is to design your next options instead of following the standard.
One of the best definitions of success that I have come across is “Success is a progressive realization of a worthy ideal” Earl Nightingale
Courage is when you step out of the norms and design options that help you in realize that worthy ideal. It is when you pursue your individual path.
When that happens then it really doesn’t matter which option you choose, all the options are worthwhile with no distinctive difference.
“The secret to happiness in life design isn’t making the right choice; it’s learning to choose well” (from the book Design your life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans)
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This is part seven of a series of eight posts. To know more about the transformation journey and the process watch out for the next post……
Author: Abhishek Budhraja
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