Monday, February 21, 2011

Choices

Every day, every hour, every minute, we have choices to make. Some choices like stealing, cheating, purposely harming someone, are obviously poor choices. They end up hurting us as well as others. Our consciences help us avoid making these kinds of choices.

Then there are the other kinds of choices: the choices between good things – helping people, improving ourselves, spending time with friends and family. These are all good choices. No one would argue with that. The problem is we only have so much time, so much energy, so much money. We have to choose what good things we will do with the time, energy and money that we have.

What criteria can we use to make these choices? One thing we can do is look at lasting consequences – not just what’s good today but what will make a difference tomorrow and ten years from now. For example, we could reason that while spending time with friends seems very important right now, will it be as important ten years from now? Likewise, while taking a class will certainly be an opportunity to improve ourselves, will it matter that much ten years from now?

There are no easy answers to these questions. These are the kinds of choices we struggle with. Maybe it really will make a difference ten years from now or maybe it won’t. How can we know? Often, we just find out by trial and error.

There are, however, some things that we do know. We know that relationships need time and energy to grow and develop. They do not grow and develop by themselves. We also know that some relationships are more important than others. We know that when we are married and have families our primary relationships – our relationship with our spouse, with our children – are the most important relationships. The strength of those bonds directly affects the quality of our lives. They are as vital as the air that we breathe.

Every day, every hour, every minute we have choices to make. Think good and hard about the choices you make.