Right Choices

​I love the writings of people like Zig Ziglar, Robert Schuller, and Stephen Covey. 
It was through Stephen Covey I first appreciated the concept of paradigm shift.  I have mentioned it before, but he illustrated it telling of a guy in a train just sitting there while his kids ran amok.  It upset the passengers until one approached him about it. He apologised and said they had just been to the hospital where the mother had died and he did not know what to do.  That resulted in a whole new way of thinking.  The reason for particular actions was totally different to what was thought to be the case.
Schuller knew he was inspirational, but realized he needed to be careful when his writing inspired a prisoner to attempt a breakout. 
Through Ziglar I became aware of the jumping flees.  Apparently flees in a bottle with a lid on learn to jump as high as the lid.  They can then be placed in an open container and they will only ever jump as high as the lid was, even though freedom beckons.
I reckon each of those is an important life lesson for me.  Yet I question.  Napoleon and JFK said and did some amazing things.  Napoleon’s strategy lives on.  JFK has inspired movies.  Yet both are dead.  I ask myself which would I rather, be alive or have my memory live on?  My answer for that one is fairly simple.  Living is preferred.  Yet having both is possible when requirements are met.
I need to store up the things I learn.  As in everything I need to start somewhere.  I can fritter everything away if I want to.  There is no law or compulsion that makes me do what I do not want to.  I always have a choice.  Good or bad choice.  The common denominator is choice.
The thing is (and I wish it were not this way), my choices are often bad ones.  They are mostly good when others are involved.  I try to obey the road rules.  I look out for my wife.  I try to do what needs to be done when others cannot do it themselves.  Yet when it is just me, my actions are often destructive.  I am better at looking out for others, than I am at looking out for myself. 2:1-6)
Still Rome wasn’t built in a day and the accumulation of life lessons is a gradual thing.  Like writing something is often line on line, and the gradual addition of things.  Eventually what was only one or two things needs a bigger container.
A lot of stuff does not just happen for me.  I need to really want it.  I need to need it like a thirsty person requires a glass of water.  I can take it or leave it, and more often than not I leave it.  But when it is a life and death thing, I tend to take it.
In a sense I see any good personal call as a hidden treasure.  It is something I put away for a rainy day.  Even though they are stored away, I have found that so often actions are not rehearsed.  It is not a matter of I must remember that so I can bring it out at the right time.
It just happens and it is a great feeling.  Knowing that my contribution at the right time and in the right way released the pressure others felt.  Others need that, and I know I do. 
​(Pro 2:1-6)