Will You Choose?

Categories: Uncategorized Apr 26, 2014

Millions will Enter, few will win. Do you remember that? That little phrase at the end of the cereal commercials where they would hook us in with some great prize or toy if we would get our parents to buy their cereal and enter their sweepstakes? Oh, the good ole days. I would watch the Super Friends and get suckered in to the cereal commercials that aired in between episodes.

LATER, at the Hall of Education - when I was in college, I majored in statistics. That was not as fun as I thought it would be. To be honest, I only chose stats as a major because I thought it would be neat to be like Rain Man and figure out how to beat the "House." Statistically, I learned that the "House" really doesn't lose and I was better off keeping my money. I probably could have learned that without majoring in statistics, but hey, I received an education and I learned what I didn't want to do the rest of my life.

The point I am trying to draw from this is that there are a lot of things in life where the odds are stacked against us. There are a lot of things in life where luck is the only option and the only way to win. Many times it seems like life, or our health, more specifically, is determined by the "luck of the draw." But I want to tell you, that is not necessarily true. In fact, it's a lie.

There are some things in life that we cannot control: where we are born, who our relatives are, how big our feet will grow, etc... But there are some things in life that we can control: how we move, how often we move, how we eat, what we eat, how much we sleep, what we think about, etc.... Believe it or not, you have a great deal to say about the quality of life you will live.

This may be a shock to you, or it may not, but did you know that you can control your genetics? Well, sort of. You cannot determine the genetic code that is passed on to you from your parents, but you do have some say about how those genes that you possess will express themselves. For example, you may have inherited a "bad" gene for issue "Z", but your lifestyle and the choices you make can greatly determine whether or not that gene will express itself. Yes, the choices you make, and the thoughts you keep, can greatly effect how even your genes express themselves - good or bad.

That may be hard to wrap your head around, but consider this: Some people are born athletes, others aren't. FALSE. We are all athletes. We all have been given the same movement template that was designed to help us build wonderfully athletic, graceful and powerful bodies. However, not all of us choose to move and live inside the movement template we have been given. It is not luck that some of us are athletic and some of us aren't. Many times, it is choice.

My only point is that we don't have to live our lives thinking we need to be lucky, or we just don't have any luck on our side. Every single one of us is a living miracle. You beat the odds the moment you first entered the world. Your body is built phenomenally well, regardless of the genes that you carry. You have a mind capable of creative inventions and thoughts never before created. You have a body capable of dancing, climbing, running and jumping. You choose your thoughts, whether or not you think. You choose your body, whether or not you will move. The quality of our lives is really up to us in many cases. It all comes down to what we choose.

Our health, our lives, is not so much a lottery as it is a choice. The statement is not "Millions will enter. few will win", but it is rather, "Millions will enter, few will choose."

Will you choose?

Will you choose to move? Or choose to be still?
Will you choose to get 8 hours of sleep? Or choose to go to bed late even though you have to get up early?
Will you choose to dwell on negative thoughts? Or, will you nurture positive thoughts?
Will you choose to smile, or choose to stew over traffic?
Will you choose to forgive and let go, or choose to hold onto a grudge and harbor festering resentment?
Will you love, or will you hate?

It's all a choice. No luck about it.

What will you choose?

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