Remember when you had to raise your hand and get a hall pass to go to the bathroom? Remember how your parents made you eat everything on your plate before you could eat your dessert? Even the horrible, overcooked, canned green vegetables that now sat there looking somewhere between an olive and a brown color and had the texture of slimy pond scum. How about “the haircut” that your mother gave you, or worse, paid some one else to give you, leaving you with 1/4” of bangs or some hideous helmet shape that is forever immortalized in your sixth grade school photo?
There are a thousand little moments in our lives, mostly from our childhood, when we felt we had no choice but to surrender, cave, give up, capitulate, yield, or cede.
Choice.
Choice.
Here’s the dictionary definition of this six letter word:
CHOICE: Noun– the person or thing chosen or selected, the act of choosing or selecting, one of a number of things from which only one can be chosen. Adjective– of superior grade, appealing to refined taste, pleasing to the sense of taste.
The thing is, we’re not children anymore. There is no one standing behind us watching our plates and forcing us to eat the double bacon cheeseburger with onion rings, fries and a chocolate shake. We chose that. We get to choose what we eat. As a direct result of that power we can either create a body that is healthy or a garbage storage unit that will hold onto everything we could shove in and slam the door down on.
Every time we raise a fork, or a spoon or a chopstick or our bare hands up to our mouths, we are able to choose to continue or stop. We even get to choose between healthy food and unhealthy food. We are not goats who will, at times, eat anything; an empty can, a discarded shoe or that fruitcake from 1987 that’s made it’s way around your entire family in the Great Re–Gifting Circle. Goats don’t do this because they are stupid, but because they are desperate. According to one goat expert: “The reason for this seems to be that goats are rarely given the food and care bestowed on other domestic animals. The goat has been called the most optimistic of animals. Since it usually is not fed well, it will try to eat anything in the hope that it may be good.”
We’re not stupid either. We just make bad choices sometimes.
We also get to choose better next time, so choose as if your life depended on it.
I’m so glad I’m not a goat … in this lifetime.
We also get to choose better next time, so choose as if your life depended on it.
I’m so glad I’m not a goat … in this lifetime.
Since we’re talking about goats, here’s a talking goat.
Enjoy.
OK, so maybe some goats are stupid. Here’s one “learning” about an electric fence.
