Choice. What is a choice? And how can you be sure you’re making the right one?

Obviously, you don’t know beforehand where your choices are going to take you. Life isn’t some comic book like Doctor Strange where you can explore the infinite amount of multiverses that your choices could produce. How boring would it be if you could? Just making every decision knowing exactly what the outcome is going to be… There’s a reason people don’t write books about someone’s perfectly happy life where everything went exactly how they wanted it to all the time. Isn’t it so much more exciting to adventure into the unknown—terrifying or not? 

So, truly, how does one make the right choices in life? 

Here’s a good place to start: instead of asking yourself what you should do, start asking yourself what you want. Do you want a family? Do you want a lot of money? Do you want to have sex with hundreds of women or men? Do you want peace? What. Take a moment and think about it. When you start putting your desires at the forefront, the choices you need to make become a lot clearer. 

So what do you want? Honestly, deep down—without worrying about anyone’s feelings—what do you want? Do you want to be happy? Do you want to fight with someone every day? Do you want to live a life for your family and dedicate yourself to their happiness? Do you want to follow a dream? Do you want to accomplish this great task? Do you want a simple and basic life where you go to the office every day? Do you want to watch TV all day and never do anything? Do you want love, family, joy, and peace? Do you want to move somewhere? Do you want to teach people something? Do you want to explore? Do you want to be an artist? Do you want a life of chaos and pain? Do you want freedom?

What do you WANT?

What do you want now, but also, what do you want tomorrow? Decisions you make right now impact it all. Getting a sense of where you want to go can also help with your decision-making. For instance, I want to build a life with my fiancé and our family, I want to be able to continue writing stories, and I want to wake up every feeling like my life is better than my dreams. I make my choices to strive toward those things. Sacrifices have to be made but they always do in life. You’re always going to miss out on something because of the endless possibilities the universe has for you. 

My choices before I met my fiancé were: striving to become a full-time writer, not dealing with the “drama” of a relationship as I focused on myself, and wanting to wake up with a smile on my face every day.

My sacrifices were: relationships, money, any likely future, judgment, and a lot of loneliness. 

Now my choices are: striving to become a great father and husband, still working on becoming a full-time author, and having a career in web design, copywriting, freelance writing, and logo design to help us make money. 

The sacrifices I’m making are: Pretty much nothing; except the potential to get emotionally hurt, lose some sleep, and have less time to focus on my own hobbies as much as I used to (like my novels, gaming, hockey, etc.). But guess what? Those sacrifices are worth every single great thing I get out of my life. 

Some might say, “But what if there are unintended consequences? What if I make a choice that I think is good in the moment but it ends up being a mistake?”

My reply would be: dive in head first and just have faith. Don’t worry about what could or couldn’t happen. Worry about what you want and keep making choices to strive towards getting it. Choosing anything else will only hold you back and make things harder to accomplish.

“And what if I can’t have what I want to have?”
Then pick the next best thing that is possible. Just remember, everything has a way of working itself out. You never know what could or couldn’t happen when you want something and work towards getting it. 

“Ok, but what if my decisions hurt someone?”
Could some decisions lead to negatively impacting others? Sometimes. Sometimes you can cause someone a whole world of pain because you choose something they don’t want. Remember that their choices brought them here too, and you aren’t responsible for other people’s decisions. You aren’t stuck having to live with their mistakes because you were part of their life. It isn’t your job to make everyone in the world happy. That’s their job. Don’t let other people impact your choices. Don’t let other people tell you what to do or how to feel. If they don’t like it, tough. Life is short. You have to make the most of your time here. It’s ok to be happy and for others not to be if that’s how they decide they want to live their lives. That’s their decision and only they can break themselves out of it.

That isn’t to say all choices are good choices and that nobody matters other than yourself. Of course, that isn’t the case. Choices you make for other people aren’t even close to the same thing as personal decisions—so don’t get the two confused.

Life isn’t easy and making the choices you feel are best can be difficult—but deep down, you always know the choices you want and have to make. You just have to follow your gut and have faith that things will work out. 

Maybe a choice will take you exactly where you want, or maybe it’ll be like a wish from a genie and you’ll regret everything you wished for. Maybe a choice will take you somewhere completely unexpected, for better or worse. Perhaps an outcome will even seem terrible at first but turn out to be a blessing in the end. Choices, choices, choices. Aren’t they such wonderful things? Even something as small as a meal choice can impact your entire day.

The bottom line is that your choices define your life. Who you want to be and what you want to experience is your choice. So, what’s it gonna be?