The Power of a Decision

What is the single force that controls the quality of your life?  The one thing that makes or breaks the way you approach a situation, thought or forward action?

Everything in our life changes when you commit to just one thing.  That one thing is CHOICE.

Most people, especially myself, get sidetracked by focus.  I focus on the wrong things all the time.  This, in turn, tells me that I'm not worthy of getting better information to make better decisions.

Why?

Because my focus is on the negative - the horrible media going on these days, the lousy job I think I have but if I really applied myself, could be something greater.  My physical condition that, let's face it, says those Sunday doughnuts are the end-all-be-all to my existence.

But does all this focus cause me to put one foot in front of another with zeal and possibility or does it make me dread the coming moments?

Precious moments are lost forever five minutes from now.

So really the choices I make each and every moment of my life determine how my life will become greater and greater.

One choice I have is to decide what makes me afraid and to deal with it.  Why do I have these fears that manifest themselves into daily nightmares?  The future.  Success.  The fear of failing my family.  The fear of dying some horrible death, or worse, my family dying all around me.

Yep.  I have all those.

I remember Basic Training was absolutely the most fearful time of my life - just out of high school, never pushed myself to excel at anything, comfortable in the family fears that I had adjusted to -  being abused by uncles time and time again.  Yes, abuse is comforting in a very real sense because repetition trains your mind to accept the practice as "normal." So, the Army rocked my world with the stratagem of  training by dictating within me a different ground-shaking, soul-reaching mentality.
No fear.  No holding back.  In your face.

The Army has a way of showing you that to overcome a limitation in your mentality you need to get extremely physical, thus, the 2 mile run to clear your head, the push-ups to keep your focus, the situps to push the negative out of your belly which has a life force of its own - all these with intense "just do it!" attitude which has a way of making you look hard into a mirror.

So, if I don't like my job, I need to change it.  If I am afraid of success by writing a block-buster novel, I then need to surround myself with positive thinking people or media which then leads to positive actions.  Make decisions that create a greater good for myself and those around me.  Give a hug to someone every day.  Do a good deed every day.  Immerse myself in goodness and look at the negative as a choice of whether I want to engage or not and not make it the standard way of seeing the world in the One Shot that God has given me.  Is there a better way to think about a situation other than what I'm currently thinking?  Is there a better avenue to change a deeply learned trait that has taken me absolutely nowhere?

I'm pretty sure there is.  Now to make it happen.

My Mom Flies Higher Than Me

I did my basic training at Ft. Jackson, SC back in the early 80's.  I had graduated Po-Dunk High School a couple of years before and wandered aimlessly around Birmingham with no hopes of getting a job any time soon other than refilling the salad bar at the local Shoney's.  I had applied for a position with Bellsouth but, at that time, there were racial quotas that had to be met and I wasn't in the color group they were looking for.  They actually told me this because at that time companies could admit to racial profiling and be proud to shove the application back and slam the door.

So, I went back home and my dad and I went to the local recruiter for the Navy (closed for an event), Air Force (closed for an extended meeting/lunch or their quarterly PT run 1000ft to the Hardee's for breakfast) but the Army was open so we walked in.  First thing out of my recruiter's mouth was "This is not the Private Benjamin Army, young lady!"

Ok, Exit.  Stage Right.  "My hair will poof." was the only thought going through my mind as the Army stations me in some remote jungle with nothing to get me home except a clean pair of socks and an outdated training manual.

I looked around at my life and didn't like the frustration of the coming years living in a town that, at the time, had nothing going for it except a gigantic grocery store called Food World, working at Wally World wasn't super back then and making the quarterly trip to the only Chinese restaurant 20 miles away.   Living in Huntsville wasn't an option because I hated Huntsville with every fiber of my soul.  My uncles lived in / around Huntsville.

I still wasn't sure about this whole Army thing but I did it anyway and when Mama found out, she cursed Dad and threw pots and pans in the kitchen, swearing I was a boy or gay or both.  She didn't like it one bit but I'm thinking she would have been ok with the Air Force - just not the Army.  It was too masculine and, deep in her heart, the secret fear was I would be shipped to a combat zone because the Vietnam had only over about 7 or 8 years prior.  She and my Uncle Lewis sewed military boots at Genesco for many years during the war which is why even the slightest hint of rubber cement takes me straight back to "the day" and a time when the slightest spark of conflict from any source sent our government into tailspins.  I reminded her that President Reagan hadn't approved of women in combat yet and the Wall was still up so there was a pretty good chance I'd be stationed at a support unit.

So I got on the cattle truck and said goodbye to my wasted future in Po-Dunk.

First week of basic training was beyond TV-Land for this here Couch-o Tate-o.  I had arrived in a Hell that would make most Pentecostal preachers shake their Bibles with the pure joy because preachers like to win and they like to gloat.

Run those aisles and jump those pews!  THAT GIRL IS IN THE ARMY!!  She'll be right as rain and come back to the fold after her tour because the Army will drive fear into her heart and show her that a woman's place is in the home! Hallah-louie! (I'm from the South - they say it this way where I'm from).

First week in Basic Training, I was ready to go home.  Just get me outta here - I've had enough.  I'm not ready.  I'm not prepared.  I'm not about any of this.

Second week in Basic Training, I no longer wondered what Hell was like.   I had arrived.

Third week in Basic Training, I was an ink drop away from signing myself back over to the civilian life.   Then, at that critical moment, I thought about several things:

- nothing waiting on me back home except working in a chicken plant the rest of my life.
- no chance at going to college - I'm a welfare kid - no need to say more than that.
- no car.  Parents can't afford to keep letting me borrow theirs.
- no future except to marry a chicken farmer or no-ambition country boy who still chases skirts.
- all dreams will be nothing more than that.

It was then that I made a call to my mom.  I have never forgotten the words she told me that day in that very brief conversation and to say I was surprised was like serving hot dogs at a World Summit For Peace Talks:

"You are a part of me and I have never been, nor will I ever be, a quitter.  I should have gone in the military myself when I was your age because I could beat that training with one hand tied behind my back.  I don't raise quitters.  Never have.  Never will.  You get back in there and do what you came to do and never forget I am very proud of you.  You can do this."