Choices

The week before Christmas, as I drove my 4 year old granddaughter, Jazlyn, to school, she spontaneously said to me, “Mimi, it’s a beautiful land what we live on, isn’t it?” Well, this really made me sit up and take notice. I couldn’t imagine, as I quickly looked outside at the landscape, just what had made her make that comment. It was a pretty bleak, cloudy wintry day without snow or even any Christmas lights lit up. Without finding something that I considered beautiful, I asked her what had made her make that comment. She said to me, “Mimi, my brain just told my mouth to say that!” Well, there you have it!

How often does our brain tell our mouth to say something and then we don’t do it? How often do we think that we must tell someone that we love them and think there will be many more days to do that? That same week, two of my friends lost a parent. One day they’re here and the next they are gone. We don’t get a chance to say, “I love you” again once they go. Also that week, I finished a book called “Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout. The aging protagonist, Olive, received flowers from her husband, Henry, in a loving gesture one day and she took one look at the flowers and thought they were “the saddest damn things . . . some of them were half dead”. She didn’t appreciate his loving token. The next week, as they head to the supermarket, Henry opens the door of the car, steps out and falls, having suffered a massive stroke that leaves him mute, blind and uncommunicative. Olive often thinks of that last token of love that she had rebuffed the week before the stroke. How often do we think we have all the time in the world?

I just read a blog entry by Paul Evans http://nicheologyprofitletter.com/2009/12/rr1/. The title is “Control Your Time, Control Your Destiny”. How often do we waste time whether in our personal lives or our professional life and then wonder why nothing gets done? We each have the same amount of time, 1,440 minutes per day. Some people use this time more efficiently than others. Some use this time to do and say the things that are important. Others will choose to put off and delay.
What does your brain tell your mouth to say today?

What does your brain tell you to do today?

What will you choose to do when your brain is talking to you?

Happy New Year to everyone and may we all choose wisely in the coming year.