“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst
thing you can do is nothing.”—Theodore Roosevelt, American president
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When William Shakespeare wrote “To be or not to be,” he was actually referring to making decisions, in making choices. As bestselling author John C. Maxwell puts it: “Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.”
I came across a story on the internet entitled, “The Builder.” The author is unknown and so is the source. But since I want to drive the point of choices and decisions, allow me to share it with you:
An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by.
The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.
When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. “This is your house,” he said, “my gift to you.”
What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.
The author explained it: “So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized, we would have done it differently.”
The author urged us to think of ourselves as the carpenter. “Think about your house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life you will ever build. Even if you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously and with dignity. The plaque on the wall says, ‘Life is a do-it-yourself project.’”
The author ended his story with these words: “Who could say it more clearly? Your life today is the result of your attitudes and choices in the past. Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.”
Life, they say, is a matter of choice. You can either be happy and full of laughter or sad and grieving.
“The happiest people are rarely the richest, or the most beautiful, or even the most talented,” Jane Canfield reminds us. “Happy people do not depend on excitement and ‘fun’ supplied by externals. They enjoy the fundamental, often very simple, things of life. They waste no time thinking other pastures are greener; they do not yearn for yesterday or tomorrow.
“They savor the moment, glad to be alive, enjoying their work, their families, and the good things around them. They are adaptable; they can bend with the wind, adjust to the changes in their times, enjoy the contests of life, and feel themselves in harmony with the world. Their eyes are turned outward; they are aware, compassionate. They have the capacity to love.”
In some instances, we see people who are in tears and lonely. Paul E. Little has this observation: “One of the prominent symptoms of our times is loneliness. Isn’t it ironic that in an age of the greatest population explosion the world has ever known, more people are desperately lonely than ever before?
“Even the high-rise apartments in our big cities are monuments of loneliness. There is aching loneliness behind those doors for many people. I know of those, both in the city and in the suburbs, who go to the large shopping centers simply for the opportunity to talk to somebody in the store. Loneliness is one of the desperate problems of our age.”
Dr. Charles Wood, longtime head of the psychology department at Baylor University, used to tell his students: “There are three decisions each person must make for himself – the choice of a profession, of a life’s mate, and of a religious faith. Parents and friends will, at times, try to decide one of these things for you, but if you are to be happy and successful in life, they are decisions you alone can make.”
Concerning our choices, Joseph Epstein wrote: “We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epic, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death.”
Epstein added: “But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or adrift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do.”
He ended his explanation with these words: “But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions; these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed.”
