Choosing Your Style of Life Consciously
By: Quote Baby
Tags: In The Flow, Living, Quotes, Quotes About Life, Take Action

There are three kinds of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened. Louis Borland Hart (1980)

I thought this quote was apropos as we inch towards the end of the year when we tend to take stock of our lives. If you’re like me, you’re looking back and assessing how productively you’ve used your time on Planet Earth.

I don’t know to what degree I’ve been a person that’s “made things happen” this past year. I’ve been consumed with fighting a battle in our community for the past twelve months. For most of those I’ve been feeling like things have been happening to me rather than me having any real impact on the situation.

Despite not having a lot of successes for my massive investment of time and energy so far, I’m proud to say I’ve been fighting valiantly and have kept on fighting even during my lowest moments when all I wanted to do was quit. Does that in some weird, distorted logic make me a member of the one third of people who are making things happen? I don’t know, the jury is still out. Check back with me same time next year. The outcome of this battle should be known by then.

“Those who watch things happen”. I think a lot of people fall into this category. Life overwhelms all of us to the point we are exhausted. So it’s easy to become watchers. Especially watchers of tv. Especially streaming videos. Especially sports. Especially with a worldwide pandemic having taken over our focus. As we are forced to quarantine and social distance it’s natural for all of us to be “watchers”. But hold on, let’s not give ourselves unchecked license to put our lives on cruise control.

Even in our isolation there’s always plenty to work on. Like ourselves for one. I grew up with a father who often said, “If I haven’t learned something new each day then there’s something wrong with me.” This instilled a life long love of learning in me and it’s the greatest gift my father gave me.

Motivating yourself to learn new things all the time is an essential key to life. From my observation you can either do the learning voluntarily or avoid it and one way or the other life will come along and blindside you with something to get your attention. And it can be painful. I’m a master at avoiding pain so I do my learning voluntarily which is constantly evolving me towards higher levels of understanding, patience and acceptance of the people around me and most importantly acceptance of myself.

Life is about change. You can dig in your heels and sit down on your haunches and watch life passing by or you can jump into the mix and see where you end up next.

Finally we come to the people who “wonder what happened.” My thoughts immediately fly to stories of people who have such terrible regrets on their deathbeds.

When I was a child my Aunt Betty had a favorite refrain. She’d said, “If only I had it all to do over again.” She was filled with constant regrets and even as a grade school--er I knew I never wanted to speak those words. I can’t think of anything sadder than to have been afraid to live life on my terms or to be regretful.

My Aunt Betty died young because she’d made herself so unhappy with her multitudes of regrets. They were like a net that held her captive; impotent. She didn’t know how to seize control of her life. She watched and she regretted and I’ve no doubt wondered what happened. She refused to or didn’t know how to take action.

So you must choose for yourself. Will you make things happen in your life, watch things happen or at the end of your life wonder what happened? I’ve made my choice. What’s yours?