A man is too apt to forget that in this world he cannot have everything. A choice is all that is left him. You have the power to think what you want. No matter what the circumstance. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
There has never been another you. With no effort on your part, you were born to be somebody very special and set apart. What you are going to do in appreciation of that gift is a decision only you can make. Every single moment of your life you must choose from a number of alternatives. What you choose determines where you will end up. Everything can be taken away from you but one thing that can’t be taken until death is human freedom — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
You are the person who has to decide. Whether you’ll do it or toss it aside; You are the person who makes up your mind. Whether you’ll lead or will linger behind. Whether you’ll try for the goal that’s afar. Or just be contented to stay where you are.
One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us — how we can take it, what we do with it — and that is what really counts in the end. How to take the raw stuff of life and make it a thing of worth and beauty — that is the test of living.
He that cannot decidedly say, “No,” when tempted to evil, is on the highway to ruin. He loses the respect even of those who would tempt him, and becomes but the pliant tool and victim of their evil designs.
When a defining moment comes along, you can do one of two things. Define the moment, or let the moment define you.
We stand now where two roads diverge which are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of posterity.
Every choice moves you closer to or farther away from one of these roads. Where are your choices taking your life?
