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No two people have the same vision for themselves. They might see eye to eye in certain areas, but generally, they will have different ideas about what’s right and wrong. They will have different ideas about what’s fun, the best way to get the most out of their lives, and what activities they want to avoid.
That is how people end up in all different types of situations. They have various capabilities and limitations based on the circumstances into which they were born, but their choices throughout their lives have just as big of an impact.
Let’s talk about a few choices that you can make that can enrich your life. Each one of these will matter as you progress through adulthood.
You Can Choose Your Profession
Early in your life, you should start thinking about what you want to do and who you wish to be. You can begin looking around and deciding what career paths make the most sense based on your aptitude and priorities. Whether a personal injury lawyer seems like the ideal career for you, or whether you want to be a doctor or a racecar driver, you need to start making choices that will point you in that direction.
You might choose a profession where a college education is a must. If that’s true, you’ll have to either come up with the money to pay for higher learning, or else you’ll need to get student loans or a scholarship. You’ll also need to avoid any behavior that might jeopardize your ability to land what you perceive to be the perfect job.
You Can Choose a Law-Abiding Lifestyle or Be a Criminal
You can choose to either obey all of the state and federal laws that exist or else you can be an outlaw and a criminal and disobey them. Some people don’t feel like the law should apply to them. Maybe you’re an anarchist, and you’re willing to do just about anything you feel like, with no thought about anyone else or the consequences.
Criminals are frequently shortsighted and selfish. If you engage in criminal acts often, such as if you become a drug dealer, you have to realize that you endanger your freedom every day since a single drug bust can land you in jail for decades in some instances.
If you live this sort of life, you’re not considering your family and how crushed they will be if something happens to you. Criminality attracts both danger and violence.
You Can Choose the Person with Which You Cohabitate
You can never choose who you love. That might mean that you have feelings for a person who you think completes you and elevates your life significantly, or you could end up with a person who drags you down.
While you can’t choose the person or people for whom you have amorous or passionate feelings, you can choose what to do about those feelings. You might decide that even though you love a person, they are no good for you. You can choose to walk away from a possible relationship with them if the rational part of your brain understands that they will detract from your life rather than add to it.
You can choose to cohabitate with the right person. Maybe you will marry them, or perhaps you will live together and have a partnership that you won’t define so readily.
Either way, living with someone and sharing your life with them can either elevate your entire existence or drag down your life quality like an anchor. Choose wisely and carefully how you conduct yourself in this regard.
You Can Choose Whether or Not to Have Children
There was a time when society expected everyone to have children if they were physically capable of it. Some religions call for people to be fruitful and multiply.
Now, society does not say such things and enforce them so stringently. This is freeing because some people want nothing more than to have children, while others don’t want that responsibility at all.
Either choice, to have kids or not to have them, is fine. Having children and becoming a parent might be something that enriches your life, but the decision to not have them if you don’t feel like parenthood is for you can be equally good.
You should try not to have any unplanned pregnancies or to impregnate anyone without meaning to. When you make a conscious decision to be a parent or not to be one, you make it more likely that the child will enter a situation where the parents care for them and love them.
You Can Choose Where You Live
Since there are all kinds of people, it makes sense that one person might love living in New York City or San Francisco, while someone else might want to live in a cabin in the Pacific Northwest or on a farm in the middle of rural Kansas. Some people might love living on a houseboat in Knoxville or in a commune in Vermont.
None of these are necessarily the optimal way or place to live. It comes down to what you feel is perfect for your situation and temperament.
You might be American-born, but you decide to expatriate. Perhaps you visit another country on vacation at some juncture and fall in love with it. You can look into getting citizenship there. These moves are seldom easy, but if you are determined enough to do it, you will probably succeed.
Each of us must locate our place in the world, and until we do, we might not be completely happy or content. You might be happiest as a nomad who never lives in the same place for very long.
Every one of these five decisions will impact your life quite a bit, so don’t make any of them lightly. They can allow you to create an idyllic existence for yourself if you plot your course thoughtfully and carefully.
