The POWER to DECIDE

I never thought about this subject, until a week ago.

Last week, after a long day of shooting day for his TV show, out the blue,  @ReneCC asked me to come with him to his another TV show late at night, to be on air, live! Tried as cool as possible, I said OK. So I did it. And the host asked me this question: what made me finally resign from my former job?

I did answer her. But I brought home the question with me. I asked my self, what made me do it? I have resigned so many times from jobs. All these times, I always thought I did it because I have choices. I did. I do. But that night I realized, for the first time, that I have the Power to decide.

The power to decide didn’t just come into my life and knock my door. I guess, the power comes to me, when I know that I have choices.

I never believed when people said, “I have no choice”. The choice is out there. Most of the time, the choices that we have may not be pleasant. But that doesn’t mean that you have no choice. Sadly, most people have this victim mentality. Those who believe that they are the victims of this life, thus have no choice.

You know what, you do have choices. Even when you get lost some where in your life, you do have choices to keep on moving or just stop and give up. When you are at your lowest low, you do have to choices to get up and start all over again, bleeding and sweating, all over again or to do nothing about it.

Once you know that you have choices, you will gather the power to decide. Knowing that you have choices is one thing. But to have the first step and to do something with your choices, you need to make a decision.

Experience, knowledge, persistence even passion will stay as nouns and won’t turn into anything when somebody never take a decision to do something about it. What takes you from one place to another is not your knowledge or skills, but your decision. What makes you go deeper or fly higher in your life, are not merely persistence, hard work or even passion. Somewhere in your life, you need to make a decision first.

And let me tell you this: the power to decide is in you. And that means, the decision is all yours, including the risk or the impact that comes with it. Once you release that power, it’s not about your parents, your spouse or friends. It’s yours because it is your power.

This world is shaped by those people who some where in their lives, made a decision. So now we probably wonder, how to make the right decision? The ‘simplest’ way to answer this is to learn and analyze all your choices. Logic is needed here. But personally, I believe there’s another method to it. I choose to listen to my heart. It may sounds cliché. But for me, listening and following my heart is not as easy as it seems. In fact, that what makes it harder, every time. I will always remember what Steve Jobs once said: “Your heart somehow already truly knows what you want to become”.

So these are my choices: to live a life that matters to me or just simply living everyday life waiting until the day I finally leave this world.

I choose the first one. And for that, I make decision after decision. I have the power to decide.

What about you?