Choices are made every day, in fact probably nearly every second of every day. They range from insignificant to very important choices. As we mature the choices we made early in life, choices that may appear insignificant now, yet were choices that now have become habit. A thing we do that we don’t even think about any more. If someone asked you an hour or two after you had done it, you may say I think I did or you might feel your face and say, yes! I shaved today. The choice of what you might wear today depends on your type of work or non-work circumstances. If you wear a uniform and have done it a long time it is habitual to dress yourself in the uniform. No choice is required. A young lady with a long acquired wardrobe may take an hour to decide what she is going to wear after trying on several different outfits.
The above are all minor and maybe considered unimportant and insignificant choices made in life to some, and yet others may struggle with minor choices as if they were major.
Major choices usually begin only after you leave your home, decisions in respect to whom you associate with and where you decide to go and what you decide to do when you are there. Those are all major decisions, primarily for young people. The decisions you make each day as a young person may have an eternal effect on what you may be doing the rest of your life. I rather doubt that an addicted older person thought they would be where they are today when they took that first sniff of cocaine, they were just trying it out for fun—it was free then. The first beer or the first drink of whiskey. They were just for fun, to make us feel good and a little wild. Adults do it and why would they do it if it were not fun and enjoyable.
I started smoking when I was eleven years old. In 1945, if advertisements and movies depicted a person without a cigarette in one hand and a glass of beer or whiskey in the other, it would be a weird-looking advertisement, hardly the norm. It was a different era in time, and thank goodness things have changed. My Dad smoked and left his cigarette butts in several ashtrays around the house. My brother was four years older than I was, and he would say, “Let’s take a couple of Dad’s cigarette buts and go out behind the house and smoke them.” It was an exciting idea, and so we did. At first I got green sick, but with the right encouragement you keep trying it, sooner or later everything becomes either good or at least tolerable. If it makes you look older and more mature, like a man, all the better. Cigarette butts were always available. My friends, smoking friends and I, in the fifth grade recess time, would run down to a nearby train bridge and go underneath to have a cigarette. When I contemplate that now as an old man, I really wonder how I made it through as a non-smoker, non-addicted, non-drinker.
Usually bad things happen after youth leave the home. In my case, bad things happened, initially, while I was yet at home. The bad choices we make are sometimes orchestrated by an older sibling or friend, and if they do it, it must be O.K., or it is just for a little fun, or an experiment? Or, it must be OK or Dad wouldn’t be doing it.
I smoked for eight years until I was nineteen years old, and, yes! Some of my friends weren’t the best choice for friends either— turning things around— I wasn’t the best choice for a friend either. Remember, I smoked.
When I turned nineteen, I was a military policeman during the Korean Conflict and the training was physically demanding and I could tell that I didn’t have the endurance and stamina I needed or would have liked to have had and I was sure the smoking had a lot to do with it, so I decided to quit. But I was addicted, It was not an easy thing to do—you just don’t say, I am not going to smoke one more cigarette. In fact some people can never quit regardless of how often or how badly they would like to quit. At the nursing home where I read stories, jokes etc. to the elderly every Friday afternoon, there is a man in his fifties who smoked and contracted cancer of his throat, They operated and he now breathes through a hole in his throat. He also continues to smoke through that hole. For me I was able to quit after many tries and finally able to put it behind me. Not long after that, I discovered the Book of Mormon and soon became addicted to a spiritual way of life. We have to be careful as to who we allow to influence our life.
Chris Ensor stated that we should; “Paint a portrait of life to be proud of, one that could not be sold for all the money on earth. Hang that portrait in your mind and be aware of its ever presence. Reflect on every brush stroke that makes all the mountains and valleys and rivers and skies, the most beautiful in the land. Share your portrait with others but beware their brushes. Select only those whose brush will add to the beauty and structure of your masterpiece.”
To quit smoking and find a religion and way of life, they were the greatest choices I have ever made. That does not mean that I have lost faith in other good people that may smoke and may have selected a different way of life. Anne Frank was wise way beyond the few years she lived. She said; “I keep my ideals in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” Shortly after writing that she was put in a German Concentration camp where she eventually died.
What are the greatest and worst choice that you ever made in your life???