[blockquote source=”Jodi Picoult”]”In the space between yes and no, there’s a lifetime. It’s the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it’s the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are.”[/blockquote]

I watched a young man at the gas pump this morning, his face twisted in the anger of a day that hadn’t quite gone his way.

And, though it was only just 7:00 a.m. – I could tell, he had already resolved all these matters in his head.

“I’m sick of this, just do it!” he snarled into the phone. There;s a very fine point between energy building, and energy bursting – and, if we’re not mindful this energy can easily consume us.

I watched as he slammed the phone against the inside of the car’s dashboard window – the device exploding into the

Slamming his phone against car’s dashboard window – I watched as the device exploded into the pieces of his own unsettledness.

Embarrassed, he looked over to me – his eyes lowered in a pain-filled, sideways glance.

“Well,” he harrumphed, rather dismissively, ” I guess it’s just going to be one of those days.”

And, being the mindful (read: sometimes, meddlesome) Buddhist, I couldn’t help but to offer my very own insight.

“My dear, this life is precisely what you’ve chosen for it.”

And, by the sound of those tires screeching off in the distance, I have to say…I don’t think he quite appreciated my input.

Such is the life of a mindfully-meddlesome Buddhist ~ 😉

You know, I’ve never quite understood this often painful habit – of shifting blame to the Universe, for matters related to self. And, instead of considering the much more obvious – that we are the masters of our very own circumstances.

I mean, as if the Universe didn’t have enough to sort out…that it might actually take this time to make our lives a living hell.

And yet, our lives are filled with these moments of obvious ‘having known better’s…

My dears, our lives…ever minute…is a reflection of these choices that we make. All of the upset, the unsettledness…the joy, the bliss…all comes down to these choices, right here. And, though these choices may seem difficult, at the time – rest assured, they are never, ever impossible.

As they say, life delivers the tune…but we decide the dance.

[blockquote source=”Elizabeth Gilbert”]The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice.[/blockquote]

Indeed, I believe we’ve all felt the paralysis of indecision – so terrified in making the worst possible choices, that we end up, quite sadly…doing nothing.

Is it any wonder why we often feel such emptiness? Attributing the cause to matters outside of self, rather than addressing the true source of our upset…

Are we perhaps a bit too afraid to discover, that this hesitation is our suffering…?

It puts an entirely new spin on things, now doesn’t it?

And, realizing that in the end..

That destiny is not a matter of chance; but rather, more so…a matter of choosing.

And, if this is the case, my dears…what do you choose on this day?