Small Choices

I don't like change. I don't know anyone that does. Change is hard. I've heard that the most stressful and blood presser raising times are those big life changes. Marriage, Having a Baby, Moving and Death. These life-altering experiences shake you to the core. Where you are minding your own business, heading in a certain direction you always have gone in. Doing the things you've always done. Then, your life gets hijacked to go someplace similar but different. After kids movie night isn't whenever you feel like it. It has to be planned thought out and written on the calendar before you can watch the latest hit film. But want about little changes.

The small choices where if you do them enough over time you either hit or miss the moon altogether.

For example the gym. I hate going to the gym. I don't enjoy it while I'm there. I don't get a rush of endorphins after. I have to mentally prepare myself the night before to go. Make sure my workout clothes are ready, the water bottle is clean. Or I'll make some lame excuse to not work out. It's when I have been consistent and then stop that the benefits are made evident. I start losing my breath going up a flight of stairs or getting exhausted when holding my sons when we play Airplane or running around playing m=Monster.

The small choices matter; but not always for the good. Eating fresh-baked, flaky, delicious croissants every day will lead to getting fat and clogged arteries. Sure you don't feel the cardiac failure as you bite into the warm pastry. Could you imagine how easy it would be to make good decisions if you could immediately feel the effects of our choices? Lift a few weights at the gym and 5 minutes later you look like a greek god. Eat a jelly bean and feel diabetes punch you in the gut. That's not how life works.

It's the same small choices over time that add up to the person we want to be. Now, where we go is entirely up to us.