Everyday we make choices and those choices can influence our lives.

Often, we make choices without even thinking.  We then repeat our choices, making the same choice so often that it becomes a habit, an automatic habit of choice. 

We decide what to wear, regularly choosing our favorites.  Breakfast is often a habitual decision whether it’s eggs or cereal or something else altogether.

Some of us choose to greet the day with a smile, even a crooked and sleepy smile. Others of us slip into a sleepy frown or a grouchy remark.  Every choice we make changes our day.  Every choice we make changes how people act around us.  We can choose to stand tall or we can round our shoulders and close others out.

Writer, Laura Munson’s husband of almost twenty years took her by surprise one day when he announced that he didn’t love her, that he might never have loved her, that he needed to move out immediately.  To her surprise, she took a breath and allowed a bit of calm to enter her heart and her head.  That split second of calm changed everything.  Her improbable reply was simply, “I don’t buy it.”

A bit of background.  Our writer knew her husband was experiencing the debilitating self-doubt that comes from a precipitous mid-life change in career success.  She knew, she understood, she was well acquainted with the frustration of an unfulfilled career – she’d already gotten beyond that.

The split second she took allowed Munson to make a choice, to respond from her head and not from the passion she felt in her heart.  That split second, that choice, prevented the argument that would surely have put them on the path to divorce.  That split second and the choice she made caused her husband to stop a moment because he wasn’t hearing the dialog he’d played out in his head.

Our writer followed her “I don’t buy it.” with “What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?” Over the ensuing days, Laura Munson repeated these two sentences, choosing not to fall prey to passion or fury.  Though not immediate, the happy outcome of the choice she made is a stronger marriage with deeper communication and intimacy.   For a fuller and more thoughtful telling of her story, read Laura Munson’s memoir This Is Not The Story You Think It Is, A Season of Unlikely Happiness.  Here’s the link to her website.

When a surprise, a challenge, maybe even a negative experience arises in life, choosing a moment of calm can change the outcome.  It takes practice and it most certainly requires choice. 

Try it out.  See how it works.  You might even start a new habit, a new way of making choices.  Until recently, I lived in Chicago where aggressive driving is an art form.  Invariably, I’d get a flash of anger when cut-off by another driver – especially the driver of a big, black SUV oblivious to all, talking on their phone.  That anger would change my day until I chose to change my thinking.  Other people’s driving habits are not about me, they’re about the other person.  Now I take a breath, calm my mind, maybe even smile and think about – well, you name it.  Sometimes I try to remember a joke, sometimes I think about a grandchild.  Whatever gets your mind to a place of your choosing.  It’s how I keep my day the way I choose, and not the product of some other person’s irritating actions.

Other thoughts on choice
Practice is what makes choice an art.  Ooops, you reacted rather than chose?  It’s practice, repetition, the development of a habit that can make the difference.  We can consciously choose to make our daily experience meaningful, satisfying or whatever descriptor fits you.

Victims of circumstance make a choice.  They choose to let circumstance control their life.  Sad, angry, ugly and painful things happen.  Rather than letting them control our destiny, we can begin again by choosing to create the mental energy, the mindset.  It starts with choice. 

One of the interesting experiments I’ve carried on for decades is to smile when walking into a room of people, into a store, into a meeting.  Not a big grin; rather, a warm smile. I stand erect and make sure I appear to be confident and warm.  It changes how people receive you. Choosing a positive expression can change not just your day but also the daily experience of those whom you encounter.