Brrriiinnnggggg! The alarm clock sounds. Drat! Time to get up again. It feels like you just went to bed, barely had time for a dream that ended too soon, now you have to start another day.
You stumble to the bathroom, and then to the kitchen. Half-asleep, you reach for a mug for your morning coffee.
You drop it. Crash! It falls to the ground, and breaks… into multiple pieces. One piece shatters completely. There’s no saving it, no gluing it back together.
You hear footsteps and a frustrated sigh. It’s your spouse, who was woken by the crash and did not appreciate being woken up any more than you were.
Your spouse’s facial expression is anything but happy. “That was one of my favorite mugs. I wish you could be more careful.” A sigh. A roll of the eyes. An unhappy turning around and leaving the room without offering to help clean up the mess.
As if you meant to drop the mug! As if you are happy about it!
How do you respond?
If you’re immediately so offended that you begin shouting everything you’re thinking and start a big war with your spouse that will last three days, turn to page 3.
If you take a deep breath and take a moment to think before you respond, turn to page 7.
Hmm.
You know how choose-your-own-adventure books work. You make a decision that will change the entire outcome of the story. If you make the “right” choice, you’ll end up king or queen living in a beautiful castle, but if you make the “wrong” choice, you’ll be sent to the dungeon and eaten by the dragon.
In the books, we often don’t know which way will be “right” or “wrong.” We’re not meant to know. It’s supposed to be a surprise.
But in real life, we usually have a lot more information to work with. We usually have a pretty good idea of which kind of response will lead to a good outcome and which will not. It’s not foolproof, of course. Sometimes, we’re in for a surprise. But most of the time, if we just stop and think before reacting rashly, we can make the right decision that will lead to a happier outcome.
Granted, sometimes it’s not so easy to know which decision will be better. If we have time, we can pray, do some research, and ask for other people’s advice. Sometimes, even then we don’t get the outcome we hoped for.
But, as in the choose-your-own-adventure books, it is never just one solitary choice that determines our final ending. Usually, we have several choices to make before the end. Sometimes, we make a choice that takes us back to a page we’ve read before, where we have the opportunity to try again and get it right this time. Sometimes, we don’t get a second chance to make the first choice, but we do get lots of chances to make other choices that will still lead us to a happy ending.
Most of what happens in those books is not within your control. You didn’t create the setting, make the characters, or determine the plot. But your decisions still matter.
So it is in life. You can’t control everything that happens to you. You can’t control the way other people behave. But your response is what will make your future better or worse. Choose the path that will lead to a happy ending!
Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
John Wooden