A Matter of Choice

Each of us has the freedom to choose. In any circumstance that life presents us with, there is a myriad of avenues open for us to take. And nobody, outside of our own mind and body, can make us go where we don’t want to, nor make us stay if we want to go.

My journey, since it began almost a year ago, has been replete with choices. Hard choices. Choices that required me to jump blindfolded into the blackhole of the unknown. But looking at where I am standing right now, I can most confidently say that the choices I made were the right ones. And from now on, the life I live will be based on these choices that made me grow, made me strong and made me the person that I am today:

I choose to live elegantly and grow gracefully.

Elegance, in my book, does not depend on a person’s outward appearance. It will manifest itself outwardly but it comes from within. It takes root from your values, your beliefs, your steadfast principles. It is how you live your life, with yourself and with others, which define the true measure of your elegance.

Grace is the same. It begins inwards and radiates outwards. It speaks of the serenity of your heart and the peacefulness of your spirit.

These two traits come hand in hand. You cannot have one without the latter trailing behind it. However, to acquire them takes a bit of sacrifice and work on our part. For, most of the time, it necessitates letting go of our pride, our ego. It requires taking the high road even if nobody is there. But I found out that in order to find your own special place in this earth, you sometimes have to set yourself apart from the others.

I choose to forgive.

Many a time, my heart was full of anger, of blame, of rancour. During these times, I was gripped by an intense desire to lash back at all those people who have hurt me. I was so busy playing the victim that I didn’t notice how all these negative emotions were, little by little, eroding whatever good that was left in me. As much as I said in my previous post about goodness feeding on goodness, so does the bad feed on itself. And it will not be long before these feelings turn inward and damage your own self.

In order to stop the bleeding and spare yourself from a life full of spite, there is no other way out than to forgive. In order to live with a heart that floats rather than a heart that sinks, forgiveness is the only option.

So I chose to forgive. I chose to forgive myself. I chose to forgive others. And by forgiving, I was able to let go.

I choose to embrace the unknown.

I know fear. Intimately. I have lived with it for 35 years. I slept with it. I woke up with it. I carried it in my little purse everywhere I go. I never, for one moment, left it behind. I feared the past. I feared the present. I feared the future.

The problem with living with fear is that you do not really live. You are constantly beset by anxiety, by worry, by apprehension that there is no way that you can enjoy any moment. You might as well erase “enjoy” from your vocabulary. If you take fear with you wherever you go, you will never meet “peace” or “serenity” or “happiness”. But I wanted to meet them. So I had to let fear go.

Venturing out into the unknown, out of your comfort zone is a scary choice to take. However, the knowing lies in not knowing. Another paradox in life. In order to seek your truth, you have to know your untruths. And most often than not, the answer lies in the unknown.

Since I opened myself up to what I did not know, the more I knew. I now know what I want. I now know what I do not want. I now know what works for me and what doesn’t. And more importantly, I now know who I am and who I am not.


The choices I made were not easy. But neither is life. Peace, happiness and serenity come with a price. You only win the prize if you are ready to pay the price. But once done and once paid, there is no turning back, there is just going forward.