What else are you now able to make choices about?

Few things are healthier than making choices that please and nurture us.

Even if we can’t foresee the long term impact of those choices in the moment, we trust that they give our sense of self greater momentum. And we trust that they launch a chain reaction of decision continuity that grows our leverage in small, daily bursts.

Essentially, each positive and life giving choice we make is what gives us the opportunity to ask an important question:

What else are you now able to make choices about?

This is where empowerment and motivation are born. Not that externally driven, coffee fueled, approval seeking type of motivation that has a short half life.

But real, authentic, clean, inner drive that’s sustainable over the long term.

Like when we wake up early to do movement or meditation practice before work, the rest of our morning passes like a cool autumn breeze.

Or when we sneak away from the office during lunch break to work on our exciting new side project, the rest of our afternoon flows like the water.

There are a hundred other examples just like those two, but what they all have in common are, we’re making choices that please and nurture us. Each time reminding ourselves that there are now other things we’re able to make choices about.

What’s difficult about expressing this kind of freedom is, sometimes our choices seem like an affront to people’s way of doing things. The mere mention of our favorite daily practices or routines triggers people’s judgment and scorn.

Which is totally on them, obviously. It’s all projection. But that doesn’t make it any less difficult for us to express our authentic selves.

Being a target for other people’s resentment always sucks. It makes us doubt our identities. We start wondering if everyone is right, we’re deluded, and we’re the only ones who can’t see how crazy our choices are.

Randian archetypes often struggle with this form of social resistance. Ayn wrote in her collection of journals:

Since it is the mob’s murderous desire to revenge its hurt vanity against a man who dared to be alone, each of us must live up to our highest vision of ourselves, no matter what circumstances we might encounter. Even if we have no regard whatever for all that society holds sacred and live with this consciousness all our own, we trust our hearts and remain loyal to the best that’s within ourselves.

Does that resonate with you? Certainly strikes a chord with me. Hell, people have been resenting my life choices since adolescence, both big and small. Whether it was quitting the football team, not drinking and doing drugs, wearing a nametag every day, or moving across the country to a big city, social resistance has always been there.

But the compassionate, empowering voice in my head reminds me that these choices are mine to make, and if they please and nurture me, then screw everyone else.

Remember, all we do is make choices all day long, and in every one of those choices is the possibility to do something that pleases and nurtures us.

Are you confident that you can do things that will bring you joy and happiness?