Life is Choices

Your life is a series of choices.  Every moment, every day, you are making choices – what to wear, what to eat, what route to take to work, etc.  But there are some significant choices that you make that have a profound impact on the rest of your life, even if you do not realize it at the time.

Several times in my life, people have remarked to me that I am “lucky” to have had the chance to do something, or to be doing something.  I usually respond that I believe that what they perceive as “luck” was a result of specific life choices that I have made.

In general, I do not believe in the concept of luck.  The one exception is synonymous with what currently is often referred to as privilege.   I was privileged to be born to a white middle-class family in Minnesota; this start probably resulted in some opportunities that might have been more difficult for someone born into different circumstances.  Since I had absolutely nothing to do with the family or location I was born into, I would say that this was somewhat “lucky.”  But, from that point forward, my life was mine to live.

The following is a list of choices that I made in life that I believe had a significant impact on the trajectory of my life and led to my current situation – retired in my 50s and living in Mexico.  For those that read my prior post Question Everything, you will notice some overlapping topics:

• The choice to go to college
• The choice of my major in college
• The choice of the location of the college I attended
• The choice of the person I married
• The choice to apply for certain jobs
• The choice to live in specific places
• The choice not to have children
• The choice to live on a sailboat with the goal to eventually travel on it
• The choice to get a master’s degree
• The choice to be debt free whenever possible
• The choice that either my husband or I would work full time, but not both of us at the same time
• The choice to leave various jobs
• The choice to buy a house
• The choice of what to do in retirement
• The choice to retire early

My choices were right for me and would not necessarily be the right choices for others.  The point of writing this is to convey that you do have choices in life.  Many of the choices I have made were not the choices that others may have wished for or expected of me.  Many probably seemed sudden, but every one of the choices listed above was the result of weeks or sometimes months or years of research, contemplation, and if they also involved or impacted my husband, discussion with him. If you are unhappy or unsatisfied with some aspect of your life, you have the power to change it.  It may take time and takes courage, but you will not regret taking action to move toward something that is calling to your heart.  Things may not turn out the way you think they will, but I do believe they will turn out the way they are meant to.