Your Choice

One of my absolute favorite scriptures in the Book of Mormon says this: 

"Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves..." 

I think this is a really interesting idea. It is telling us to be happy because we are FREE to choose and act for ourselves. That doesn't mean that other people won't make choices for us if we neglect to, but the point is we CAN. If we want. 

Here is another of my favorite quotes: 

"There are two ways of evolving: deliberately and accidentally. You can either decide who you want to become and deliberately work toward that end, or you can just go with the flow and become whatever life makes of you. In that event, you will become whatever the fickle circumstances and forces of life and society will make of you; whatever is currently considered to be popular or in; whatever is easiest. But, whatever you become accidentally it will not be nearly the full measure of our potential. You will become just someone, somewhere in the middle." 

That is from the fourth missionary. It's good. 

Oh, and just to make my point even more...

I think you are starting to get the idea of where I'm going here...

I can't claim that I am the most confident person ever. I don't like the way I look most of the time and sometimes I don't think I have the best abilities to stand up next to a lot of really accomplished people. 

This semester, in my first "intro to psychology major" class they told us to get a research assistant position as soon as possible. So. I went at it and within the week I found a position. 

The important part of that is... I almost didn't e-mail them to ask for a position because I figured they had way more qualified people that had asked. 

But now I have spent a whole semester learning about family therapy and how to work on articles in order to do meta-analysis. I also am sticking with this position for spring and was offered another paid research assistant position in the program that I am interested in for graduate school. 

What if I hadn't even bothered because I assumed I wasn't going to get it anyway? 

Second example. 

I had been searching for a new job the entire semester because I had been in food service too long and needed something new. ALL SEMESTER I sent in applications to almost everywhere and was rejected by all of them. For about a month I didn't even bother anymore because clearly I didn't have good enough skills. I accepted my fate as a cafeteria worker. 

... until I got over it and kept applying and landed an awesome job in the police office. 

I honestly thought I had NO chance to get that job because it paid pretty high and was a really good deal. I knew a lot of people would be applying and I was probably nothing compared to them. I considered not applying. But I did. And I got it. 

I have been really blessed this semester and although I am taking this from a religious standpoint (mostly because this is a principle I studied and loved on my mission), it applies to everyone. 

Basically my standpoint from the mission, jobs, school, EVERYTHING is: you miss 100% of the opportunities you don't take. 

I hear a lot of people say things like, "It's okay, I'm just a (insert their position that they use to think lowly of themselves)." I'm just a cafeteria worker (guilty). I'm just a sophomore. I'm just in my third transfer. 

Sorry to be blunt but..

WHO CARES? 

Realize I apply these principles and things to myself. 

I'm totally guilty of feeling sorry for myself when I feel like I can't stand shoulder to shoulder with those who are doing really cool things with their lives. 

It doesn't matter what your job is, or what you study, or what position you are in for school. You have the ability right now to start caring about what happens to you and start making deliberate choices to get somewhere and do awesome things. 

Who cares if you fail? Failing isn't falling down, it's staying down. 

Lose the excuses. Limited resources can't stop you from taking the opportunity to learn something new or have a new experience. I would say that 90% of the awesome opportunities I have found this semester have been from someone I know giving me a heads up or just completely random chance. 

It doesn't matter what's going on, just do something. 

CHOOSE to go do something cool with your time. Visit a museum or do some service. 

CHOOSE to love people instead of judge them. 

CHOOSE to not be a victim of your circumstances. 

CHOOSE to be happy (hard, but worth it). 

DO NOT CHOOSE to believe that this can't possibly apply to you. 

Is the point of your life just to sit around and wait for it to be over? 

No. 

So don't do that. 

Another quote that particularly affected me this week (and inspired this post) is this: 

“Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to used during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course? Each of us has such a bank, it's name is time. Every morning, it credits you 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off at a lost, whatever of this you failed to invest to a good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no over draft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no drawing against "tomorrow". You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and health. The clock is running. Make the most of today.”

I realized that I waste a lot of my precious time assuming that there is someone better qualified for every job, for every position and for every cool thing I could do. 

SOAPBOX. 

Take a chance on something and forget who you think you are. You ARE smart enough, you ARE awesome enough, you ARE qualified enough. 

You are the one that holds yourself back. Literally, it is you that has chained yourself down and that is just really weird and lame. As soon as you say something is impossible... you are right. 

Don't do that to yourself. 

Watch this and be inspired. 

Remember... it's all up to you! 

Don't be like Kenneth. 

Do this instead.