How to Live a Life of Choice

From the desk of Elijah “The Realist”
Location: Dallas, TX
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After 18 months away I find myself back in the States for a brief visit. Family and friends, hi and bye, that type of deal.

Visiting is fine and dandy but I won’t have any regrets when I get on a transpacific plane and head back out into the wild.

I don’t have any “hard feelings” about America but I find my choice to live abroad to be one of the better choices I have ever made.

I get asked all the time why I don’t live in America.

I’ll tell you why, in the simplest manner I can….

I don’t live in America because I don’t want to.

I live a life of choice and I have chosen to live abroad.

When you have the choice, the ability to do anything you want, anytime that you want, you start to ask yourself questions like “why?”.

“Why do I live here or why do I live there? Why am I working this job I hate?” Etc…

When you answer the “why” question you may realize you have no reason to do what you are doing.

You may realize you have the power to CHOOSE.

You may realize ONE simple fact of life: you can change the things you don’t like.

You may realize that you aren’t exactly stuck.

You can take an aspect of your life you don’t like or enjoy and transform it into an aspect of life, that you certainly do enjoy. 

Just by making a choice. A simple, but relatively life-changing decision.

Instead of letting things happen to you, you can CHOOSE what you do decide to do with your life.

You can live a life of choice, in much the exact same way like I do.

Choice always existed but it took me nearly 30 years to realize “wait a second, I can choose my fate. I can live the life I want to live“.

I don’t have to live in America, I can live anywhere.

So I do. Simple as that.

Do you know how many times I’ve heard “I want to do such and such but I’m stuck in this city“?

I’ve heard it many times and I have the answer right here…

Move.

Get in a car or a bus or an airplane and go somewhere else. Complaining about something you can easily change is the exact definition of what I like to call pathetic.

“I just don’t have any options like you” is what they always seem to say.

Like I was born on a yacht in international waters or something silly. I was born in Tucumcari, New Mexico. Population 5,000. I’m from nowhere just like everybody else.

If I have the power to choose… then so do you.

Maybe you don’t take advantage of the gift of choice, but it’s there. Unless you do something silly like get locked up in jail you’ll always have it.

If you aren’t living the life you want it’s not the fault of the city you live in, your mom and dad, your girlfriend, your employer, or your dog.

It’s YOUR fault. All you ever had to do was choose the life that you wanted.

All you ever had to do was make the choice. The simple but yet relatively EASY, life-changing decision.

But hey, beggars can’t be choosers I guess. Can’t all live the dream. World needs office drones. Anarchy. Ditch diggers.

A million other rationalizations and excuses for living the life of a lapdog. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

Until next time.

Your man,

-Elijah “The Realist”