Every day you get up, get ready for work, get your family ready for work/school, and are on your way. Day in and day out, you do what you do because you have to. You are either obligated to do what you do because it’s your "duty" or you do it because you have no choice. Or, so you think.

Thoughts Are Not Truth The mind can be a tricky place. You have thousands of thoughts every day. Many of those thoughts are the same ones you had yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Repetitious thoughts become habits of thought. Who says that those thoughts are good thoughts? They are merely the thoughts you’ve been thinking day after day, year after year.

The reality is that just because you think you have to do something, doesn’t mean you do. You have a choice. In fact, you always have a choice. You have free will. You may have a thought process that does not want you to believe that you have a choice. These thought processes are the trickiest of all because of their grip on you. But that does not mean you don’t have choice. It just means your mind doesn’t want you to have control.

Your argument might be, "Well, I have to pay the bills. I have to work." The reality is that you don’t have to pay the bills. You don’t. Unless of course you like having the things that paying those bills provides you. If you like having heat or air conditioning in your home, then you’ll pay the electric or gas bill – willingly. You also don’t have to work this job. You choose to do this work and you choose your attitude and your enjoyment of it. You could choose to do other work. Work is not a bad thing. When you think of work as an opportunity to do what you love, to express yourself, and to utilize your potential, then work becomes play for pay. You choose your work and you choose your attitude. There’s always a choice; you just may not like the options.

Unfortunately, society works against you. There are many forces that converge upon you to make you think you have no choices. This includes family. As I write this, it is late November and many people are discussing the obligations associated with the holidays. Why do you feel the need to go to parties or to attend social gatherings? Why do you spend money you would rather not spend on useless gifts that people don’t really care about? Why do you spend time, money, and effort on sending out all of those holiday cards to people who you barely associate with? Do you choose to do what you do because you want to impress someone? Is it because you feel obligated? Knowing why you do what you do is an important part of giving yourself choices. But often the reason is buried deep within your thought processes.

When you are growing up, you are expected to do as you are told and follow direction. This is important for children because they need limits and rules to live by. But when you are an adult, if you continue to follow the rules and blindly do as you are told, you are giving away the gift of adulthood: the gift of choosing for yourself what is best for you. This is the very thing that as children we long for and then when we receive the gift of adulthood, we fear the freedom it gives us so we continue to do what we were taught as children.

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