Choose Your Own Adventure!

Do you remember those books? The "Choose Your Own Adventure" books? I LOVED these as a kid. I would go to the library in So. Cal. and check out these fascinating wonders (Along with the mandatory cat books, of course)! I remember one where I ended up being eaten by an alien, and I felt rather perturbed that I had been, and promptly went back to the previous page, and chose another route. That one ended up being just as disappointing, if I recall correctly, so I had to start all over and COMPLETELY choose a different path.

I was thinking about my life yesterday, and how I have been choosing my own adventure, as it were, every day of my life (my adventure today was to choose to buy TWO boxes of Pepperidge Farm cookies...). Major decisions I made years ago have resulted in my current adventure, and so far I haven't been eaten by any aliens, or turned into a desk lamp.

As I thought of this choosing adventure idea, I wondered how many of us end up at the end of our chosen road and are wondering or wishing they had taken another path. This made me a little sad, and I started thinking "if I had taken this OTHER path, then I would surely be..." and then I realized that it was completely pointless bemoaning my "what-ifs," because there is no way I could possibly know it would turn out like I had hoped. You can't go back to the previous page and choose a different adventure. "You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit. You picked your adventure! You are stuck with it! Be happy you even have an adventure!"

Hind sight is 20/20 they say. Looking back may provide a great view, but looking back doesn't bring joy. It only brings dissatisfaction. We need to look forward to the next page-turning adventure in our lives, even if we do end up a slave on a pirate's ship. It's the choice and consequences of that choice that make life exciting!

So, let's all choose our adventures, and enjoy it!