Over the decades of my life, I have been able to see at very close range the impact of a full spectrum of choices in the lives of others and myself. Some of the choices and their consequences I have observed have been terrible. Some have been beautiful. I have heard more than one man say, "Oh—I love my kids so much" and then make choices that would bring a lifetime of heartache to his children. That’s not love. Too often in life what we claim we want and what we actually do can be at tragic odds one with another. It’s as if we set out to build a "dream house" but burn it to the ground as we go. What do we really want? How can we tell what we really want? Can we see a "dreamhouse" to completion, or is it just Fate that our dreams end up perpetually homeless?
What we really want is manifest not so much by our whims and wishes. What we truly want is evidenced by our daily, almost trivial, decisions and choices. One of the grand achievements in life is to find the points of contact between our seemingly inconsequential quotidian decisions and the big consequences of life. Let’s look at a simple example: health. I have not met a sane person in all my life who has not or would not expressed a desire to be healthy. No one, except perhaps someone with impaired faculties, would say, "Wow! I’d love to have the flu!" or, "Gee, it would be great to have clogged arteries, five heart-attacks, quadruple by-pass surgery, and a heart transplant!" It’s beyond absurd. Yet, many of us make decisions every day that compromise our health, little by little. It’s hard to believe that the extra doughnut (poor doughnuts have been unnecessarily demonized more than most foods!), the extra cake icing, or the generous dollop of cream on one’s cocoa or latté are really going to make a difference. But, they do. Day after day, almost imperceptibly, our choices show what we really want. In this case—we’d rather have the satisfaction of these foods than our long-term health.
Think of a man who claims to love his family. He works hard for them. He takes them on elaborate family trips, and the photo albums become crowded with happy faces. But, he begins to spend too much time at work. He spends too much time with a woman there. They are alone on business trips. They eat lunch and dinner together. In his mind, he loves his wife and family, and he wants to them to be happy. But, does he truly? The little decisions he makes that consistently cause him to spend more time at work and with someone else suggest otherwise. No excuse he can conjure is powerful enough to controvert the simple facts of his decisions. The more he is away, the more his children wonder if he cares. His wife begins to feel unneeded and unwanted. He begins to feel less engaged at home. The slope becomes increasingly slippery and dangerous.
Life matters. People matter. And, our daily decisions matter more than we realize. So, what do we really want? It is worth the effort to think through our daily thoughts and decisions and verify to what extent they line up with what we claim or appear to want out of life. The happiest people I know are those who achieve harmony such that their regular, day-to-day decisions lead, notwithstanding the normal setbacks, calamities and difficulties of life, to what they really wanted all along.
A great piece of news is that it is never too late for course corrections. For me, the guiding star of my life is Jesus Christ. He set the bar very, very high for us, "Be ye therefore perfect". Wow! This need not discourage us, though. What a compliment He has handed us. He is saying, "You can do it, kids. I’m setting the bar high, because I know you have the ability to get there, and I’ll help you do it." We must never give up on ourselves or God. Despair is not an option.
Start Today!
—John R. Durant
How This Will End 