The choices you make determine your future

We all live in the moment, that is all that is guaranteed to us.  The future is uncertain but we make decisions that affect our future constantly.  Many people think of life as a straight line but it is not.  We constantly choose paths, and those choices affect our future.  Just as we make choices so do others these paths crisscross, converge, separate and circle around time after time.  That choices of others affect your choices.  All you can do is try to make the best choice for you at that moment.

The future is simply what we make of it by the results of our choices.  To make it easy to understand lets take a newborn baby as an example.  A newborn does not make choices he reacts.  If he is uncomfortable in some way he cries for attention bringing Mom or Dad to fix it.  But he has affected his future by simply crying.  Instead of continuing on wet or hungry he has caused someone to fix the problem.

As he grows he learns about choices.  Some choices he make are good ones and some are bad.  Mom and Dad have the responsibility to teach him the difference, but they have to choose to do so.  As he grows he makes more choices for himself.  He chooses likes and dislikes in food, friends and activities he enjoys but he still has parents to answer to.  His parents protect and guide him to adulthood.

Now as an adult, he still makes choices but without the parental safety net.  He must now face the consequences of his choices.  This will lead him to success or failure but each choice affects his future and he makes his choices based on childhood experience and guidance.

So When he gets out of high school he's immediately faced with the first choice that will have a major impact on his future.  College or job?  Let's say he decides not to go to college.  He is now a part of the workforce and comes into contact with a new group of people.  Among his new friends is someone whose upbringing and background has placed them on the road to a life of crime.  Our child is now influenced by a negative force.  This negative force places the opportunity to commit a crime in front of our child. 

He is then faced with two choices that again will have a major impact on his future.  Commit a crime and possibly go to jail or remain on the straight and narrow.  He weighs his choices.  On the one hand he has a job, he's engaged to a wonderful young lady soon to be married.  On the other hand by helping his friend commit a crime he stands to get a large amount of money and he can by his sweetie a bigger ring and take care of her better at risk of going to jail. 

If he choices the first option money will be a problem but he won't go to jail, he will be married and is looking at a future family with the woman he loves.   If he chooses the second option and gets away with it he still gets to marry his sweetheart and raise a family and he is in a better position to provide for them although the dark cloud of what he has down will hang over him for the rest of his life.  If he chooses the second option and goes to jail he loses everything he has.  But that one choice will affect his future.

No one knows what the future holds.  All we can do is weigh our options like the child mentioned here and choose the one that makes sense to us.