Freedom

I made a conscious choice to have all the things that were important to me for Thanksgiving dinner. In spite of the fact that I would be all alone and share it with no one. That ended up making me feel immensely grateful for my decision, my situation and my being.

After all, if I do not treat myself the way I would like to be treated, why would anyone else? How would they even really know what that was? I wasn't sure myself until I began to weigh how much I looked forward to the smell of some things cooking and the way they tasted against how much money and work it would be to produce them.

I think that may be the major difference in the quality of many lives. There are more choices than some people are willing to acknowledge and how we decide those choices define who we are and our reaction to life. 

I know people who seem to choose to suffer. They tell themselves they must perform jobs and live with people they do not like. Then they tell themselves they have no choice. They have to work, or they cannot ask someone to leave their home. 

I have left jobs that I found intolerable and in the end the new jobs I found myself in were infinitely better! I have sometimes been a little bit lonely, but I have been lonelier living with people who make me unhappy.

It takes a little, maybe sometimes even a lot, of courage, to do what I feel is right, but it generally pays off. And if it doesn't? I can make another decision to change that.

Believing that life is a journey and I am at the helm of my own ship, no matter how humble it may be sets me free. Free to be happy. Free to accept the results and free to change things again. It is the absolute basic foundation of a good life.