Fate or Choice?

ByMatthew

Are our lives the result of fate or do we choose our lives?

Are we consigned to what our circumstances (/our pasts) allow for in the unfolding of our lives, or can we create our lives, can we be willful?

I just watched an interesting video from Marshall Goldsmith that offers a (hybrid) answer: Yes.

I found Marshall’s point (that both play a role) interesting and useful.

What’s most exciting to me is that this hybrid answer offers us a wonderful opportunity to 1) consciously create our lives (and understand the power we have to make our futures) and 2) to understand the role that our environment plays in our lives (and that we can make a numbers of choices in regards to our environments to shape them).

Either/Or thinking is seldom useful or correct (and sometimes dangerous).

When we understand the power we have, and the power of the things around us, we can make wise choices about what to do and what we (tolerate and) embrace around us.

What are you choosing? Does it serve you?

What’s around you? Does it serve you?

Similar Posts

  • What Courage Really Is

    ByMatthew

    Courage isn’t having the strength to go on — it is going on when you don’t have strength. – Napoleon Bonaparte Having the strength to go on is capacity. You either have it at any given moment, or you don’t. Want more capacity? Train… Whatever you’ll need when things get tough, develop greater amounts of that. Then…

  • How Are You Learning, Growing?

    ByMatthew

    Only those who constantly retool themselves stand a chance of staying employed in the years ahead. – Tom Peters The only job security, if there is such a thing, is intelligently growing your skills and abilities to meet future challenges and opportunities with ambition, capability and capacity. What your learning plan? How are you growing?

  • Curate Your Desires

    ByMatthew

    Is desire some thing beyond our control, or even influence? Something that arises from the ether of its own accord shrouded in mystery? It’s fair to say that we understand the need to create plans to make our desires real – that we need to be intentional and deliberate in order to make what we want…

  • How Hard Is It?

    ByMatthew

    If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you. – Steve Jobs How much are you resisting what you do? How many “have-tos” do you have in your life? Ideally, life is a collection, and series of, “get-tos.” What do you get…

  • Success Is A Science

    ByMatthew

    “Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.” – Oscar Wilde Success is assembling certain components of thought and action in a certain order. “Failure” is what you get when you have the wrong components, or the wrong order, or both. Either way, you get results. Just keep tweaking until…

  • Variations on Gratitude

    ByMatthew

    Today is the day in the USA when we give thanks. When we show appreciation for all we have. (Unfortunately many (lately) see this day as a day to buy more stuff . . . ) In the true spirit of the day, I offer you some thoughts and quotes. *  *  * Gratitude is up…