We Have a Choice to Make

It’s that time of year again. Some of us will choose to indulge in the life of pumpkin spice. Others will choose to indulge in the life of apple spice. Then there are others who will choose to stay with what they always consume. The point is, we always have a choice. It is my hope and prayer that we will begin to choose love over hate. 

If we choose for someone to control us and take over our lives, then that is our choice, and our lives are miserable. If we choose to hate instead of love, then we have chosen a miserable lifestyle. If we choose to trust fate instead of having faith, then we will become miserable with what our future has become. We are not robots, even if the powers in Silicon Valley think we are. We have choices, and we all need to choose to be better and to choose to do the good. 

We all have made the excuse that we just had to strike someone with our words, actions, or fists because they were so out of place with their words, actions, or fists. The truth is we have a choice on how to respond to those that harm us. We have a choice on how to respond to posts on social media that trigger us. We all have a choice on how we live our lives. We all need to begin to make better choices. 

We all have heard our parents or other adult leaders say, “Make good choices!” Many times when that phrase is used, most young people take it as that they need to choose to not get into trouble, but let’s take that phrase a bit further. Maybe we can start using that phrase to stop trouble from spreading or from even entering into our lives. 

It took me years to realize that I had to stop blaming others for my life journey. I made the choices I made. If I was unwise and believed their words, then it was on me. I had a choice to make. I have a choice of how to respond when someone harms me. I can sit and wallow my entire life, or I can get counseling and begin a new life with new insight and have understanding for others who may have my same hurts. I have always had a choice. Once I started making those actual good choices, I became a person with peace, joy, and even happiness. 

We all need to think before we respond, either in person or on social media. We always have a choice, even when something triggers us. We need to remember that everyone has his or her own problems. They see life the way they do because of the circumstances that they have been given. We can get to know them better. We can ask them questions. Once we attack, we made our choice to disrespect and show hate instead of love. 

We need to love those who think and believe differently than us. It’s easy to sit back and judged someone’s thoughts and beliefs and have the idea that ours is the pefect way to life. People who think and believe differently than us have done amazing things for the community, or the country, or the world. We have to stop seeing everyone who believes and thinks differently as the enemy. When we only see them as the enemy, we have chosen hate instead of love.  We have a choice. We need to choose love. 

Jesus had a choice. He could have called on legions of angels to strike down those who were nailing him to the cross. He chose to sacrifice his life so we could live. He chose love instead of hate. We need to follow the one who is perfect. We have a choice. We can choose to follow Jesus or we can choose to follow Christians and religious leaders. We have always had a choice. The choice of life and love is to choose to follow Jesus. The choice of death and hate is to follow Christians and religious leaders because in their human state, they will not choose to die for our sins. 

We have a choice. We have always had a choice. This year, 2020, has been a difficult year for many people for many reasons. We have a choice. We can heal with love or we can hurt with hate. May we all choose love and begin to heal others and ourselves. We always have a choice, so let’s go make good choices! 

 

Cobra Kai--Heroes and Villains

 As I have indulged into the television series, Cobra Kai once again, I have noticed that the simplicity and complexity of the characters truly imitates real life, thus, reigniting  the lesson that art does imitate life.

 

A short summary of Cobra Kai is that the show is the extension of the movie, Karate Kid. It takes the main character and his antagonist into life today. The show makes the antagonist, the bully, Johnny Lawrence the misunderstood hero and the victim of the original Karate Kid, Daniel La Russo, who is now the villain. They both start karate dojos in the valley, and they start the rivalry between the two once again. Actually, Daniel started his dojo to respond to the start of Johnny’s dojo, Cobra Kai, and to restore life in the valley, which many people who cannot see their own flaws do. They do something to respond to their version of their villain.

 

Daniel La Russo is now a rich successful family man, and Johnny Lawrence is a drunken bum trying to get by financially and has an estranged son. They both think they are the victim of each other.  They both believe that they are doing life the right way. Daniel even brags about balance, which will bring peace, and his life is the most chaotic mess, but you have to look closely to see that. Johnny believes that you need to be tough and fight for what you want, while he just gets drunk whenever an obstacle comes his way. Neither one of them can see their own flaws, but they can see the flaws in the other person that victimizes them.  

 

Isn’t that how we all are? We are blind to the plank in our own eyes, and yet, we can see the speck of sawdust in the eyes of those who believe and think differently than us. In fact, we call those specks our enemies and we live our lives trying to take them down instead of working diligently to take the planks out of our own eyes in order to create what we are to do in the world to make a difference.

 

No one is perfect. No one has the perfect life, no matter how it appears on the outside. We cannot see others as the villains and ourselves as the hero who does not have any flaws. In fact, most times, just like the show, Cobra Kai, many of exhibit the same flaws as those we claim to be our villains.

 

We cannot blame the villains for the choices we have made in our lives. It is our choice how we respond to discouragements and trials in life, even if a villain caused them. Then, when we do this, the plank comes out of our eyes and we can see clearly. Once we see clearly, we see the person we have seen as a villainas a human being, and that changes everything.

 

Both the hero and the villain have flaws in their character and good qualities in their character. When we take our planks out, we can have compassion for our villains, as we see that they are struggling with their flaws, even when they cannot see their own flaws. As we see the human beings, we realize that compassion is more of an answer than degrading or revenge.

 

In real life, heroes and villains exist in all of us. We all just have to see our own planks in our own eyes, and remove them in order to be our own hero and not our own villain. The villain does not change. The hero always changes. In order to be a true hero, we have to move forward and do what we are created to do. If we allow the speck of the villain to begin to hold us back from doing that, then it is our own fault. The only way to remove those planks in our own eyes is to just remember and act on the simple phrase, “Strike first, strike hard, no mercy.”