It’s in moments of decision that destiny is shaped

More than 20 years ago, my best friend from high school decided to break up with me. She felt that we didn’t have much in common, but more importantly, she wanted to hang out more with another, cooler group of girls.

As my first experience of betrayal, at 13, it was traumatic. In hindsight, I see she was right, and her choice served me well.

My mother had seen it coming. When I went to her with the news, she told me, “She’s right. Choose a friend with whom you have many things in common.”

In the years to come, my mother would guide me in my choice of friends, even though I didn’t always follow her advice. Interestingly, many of the girls she always nudged me towards have become lifelong friends.

Mama who, no doubt, had had her share of friendship dilemmas, knew the importance of choosing quality friendships.

In most things in life, outcomes are determined by the quality of decisions we make. You can place two people on a similar path, give them similar circumstances and tools but they may have vastly different outcomes depending on the decisions they make.

Let’s think of those decisions like a bag they have for their journey. What they put in the bag may seem like random objects with no correlation but in the end, they determine the quality of their life. In each of our bag, we will carry items to do with relationships, time, money, health, career or vocation and faith.

As far as relationships go, our choices will determine the types of relationship we build with our family and relatives. At some point, we may have to choose who to marry, whether to marry or remarry. According to the authors of the best selling personal finance book, Millionaire Next Door, choice of spouse and whether or not to stay married can have significant impact of one’s financial health. This choice can have a significant outcome on the quality of our life and our personal happiness. We may then choose to have children, or not. At that point, we will have to choose whether to raise our children and build meaningful relationships with them or not and have them suffer years of pain.

Choices. They don’t look like much, at first glance, but their effects can last for generations. When it comes to time, it never ceases to amaze me how some people achieve in ten years what many do not in a lifetime. It all boils down to what they do with time, and the priorities they make with regard to it.

Over the years, I’ve found that there are sufficient hours in a day to do the important things. The reason we ran out of time is due to disorganisation, poor planning and an inability to prioritise and say no.

Our choice of vocation or career will lead us to personal fulfilment and success if our decisions are based on whether we have a good fit for it, we are good at it, we enjoy it and we can make money and a living from it. We need to think about this before pushing our children to careers they are ill-suited for just because they are lucrative.

The quality of life they will lead will depend on the choices they make on career day. Eventually, we have to make quality decisions regarding maintaining our physical and spiritual health. We will need to decide why we believe what we believe, or if we will believe at all.

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions. So, what’s in your bag?