The Choices We Make
Aug. 17th, 2014 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elise_rasha I'll be writing more about Portal to Gaming in an another entry - it is available for purchase at Amazon - but I want to take a moment to say something about choices.
Back in January of 1993, back when I was living in a personal hell and didn't truly realize how far down everything ran, I met this guy. We attended the same school - he was class of 1994, I was class of 1996 - but didn't have many of the same classes together. I was a freshman, and freshmen pretty much had set courses to take. We met because I joined our competitive Forensics team.
No, we didn't investigate crimes. For those of you not in the know, in high school and college, Forensics is about the various aspects of public speaking, from story-telling to informative speeches.
Anyway, at our first competition of the year, we sat together and talked about comic books and cartoons, specifically X-Men. This was the start of a very good friendship. We had the same lunch hours so we started hanging out.
A month after our first conversation, I realized I had a crush on this guy. I then had a dilemma.
What do I do? Do I ask him and have him say no? Do I not ask him out?
This was a life-defining moment for me. I realized that I could either ask this guy out - the worst thing he could have said was "no" - and take my chances or I could live with the questions of what could have been for the rest of my life.
I chose to take a chance, to not live my life always asking "what if I had done this instead", and asked him in a note to be my boyfriend.
He said "yes" to my note. For almost a year, we were boyfriend and girlfriend and not just friends. While it didn't work out between us, I still had my answer.
Recent events and a recent conversation with my best friend, whom I love as my wise and crazy older sister, have reminded me about what it means to take a chance.
And I know that there are a lot of reasons for why we take chances or don't take them. All answers boil down to a fear of failure or a fear of rejection. I chose at the age of 15 to never look back, to take those chances. For years now, I dreamed of being published and of being successful at it, of lamenting to myself how I wasn't and kept saying some day. Some day soon. I have other dreams I want to fulfill, too, and I will.
I've also been told that the things I want to do, like writing, are a waste of time. There isn't any profit in it, that I will never make it, that I need to do something more practical and more meaningful with my life. I've still chosen the career of an author. It has always given me meaning in my life, and I've taken the first step. Because I'm done dreaming. It's time to do.
Because I chose at a very young age to never look back and lament on what I could have done. Woulda/coulda/shoulda gets you nowhere.
So ask yourself: Do you want to look back on your life and ask yourself the woulda/coulda/shoulda? Or do you want to look back on your life, knowing the answer?
Back in January of 1993, back when I was living in a personal hell and didn't truly realize how far down everything ran, I met this guy. We attended the same school - he was class of 1994, I was class of 1996 - but didn't have many of the same classes together. I was a freshman, and freshmen pretty much had set courses to take. We met because I joined our competitive Forensics team.
No, we didn't investigate crimes. For those of you not in the know, in high school and college, Forensics is about the various aspects of public speaking, from story-telling to informative speeches.
Anyway, at our first competition of the year, we sat together and talked about comic books and cartoons, specifically X-Men. This was the start of a very good friendship. We had the same lunch hours so we started hanging out.
A month after our first conversation, I realized I had a crush on this guy. I then had a dilemma.
What do I do? Do I ask him and have him say no? Do I not ask him out?
This was a life-defining moment for me. I realized that I could either ask this guy out - the worst thing he could have said was "no" - and take my chances or I could live with the questions of what could have been for the rest of my life.
I chose to take a chance, to not live my life always asking "what if I had done this instead", and asked him in a note to be my boyfriend.
He said "yes" to my note. For almost a year, we were boyfriend and girlfriend and not just friends. While it didn't work out between us, I still had my answer.
Recent events and a recent conversation with my best friend, whom I love as my wise and crazy older sister, have reminded me about what it means to take a chance.
And I know that there are a lot of reasons for why we take chances or don't take them. All answers boil down to a fear of failure or a fear of rejection. I chose at the age of 15 to never look back, to take those chances. For years now, I dreamed of being published and of being successful at it, of lamenting to myself how I wasn't and kept saying some day. Some day soon. I have other dreams I want to fulfill, too, and I will.
I've also been told that the things I want to do, like writing, are a waste of time. There isn't any profit in it, that I will never make it, that I need to do something more practical and more meaningful with my life. I've still chosen the career of an author. It has always given me meaning in my life, and I've taken the first step. Because I'm done dreaming. It's time to do.
Because I chose at a very young age to never look back and lament on what I could have done. Woulda/coulda/shoulda gets you nowhere.
So ask yourself: Do you want to look back on your life and ask yourself the woulda/coulda/shoulda? Or do you want to look back on your life, knowing the answer?
