THE CHOICES YOU MAKE, IS THE PATH YOU TAKE

 From staying up late, or waking up early,

It's you, who decides,

From basic routine, or no routine,

It's you, who decides,

From doing things right, or not doing them,

It's you, who decides,

From less entertainment, or over entertainment,

It's you, who decides,

From picking up the drink, or not having one,

It's you, who decides,

From a healthy diet, or junkies & snacks,

It's you, who decides,

From a couch potato, or one with a motto,

It's you, who decides,

From working a snitch, or working on self,

It's you, who decides,

From sternly showing up, or just showing off,

It's you, who decides,

From a downright fight, or a sneaky flight,

It's you, who decides,

Every decision,

Is a change of direction,

The choices you make, is the path you take

The path or process, the peak or pit

For better or worse, A boon or a curse

It is what it is because of you, and the power to change is still within you

Some show alacrity, some hug mediocrity

But the strength from within comes from tenacity

The key that opens the locked-up door,

Make sure your path is worth an explore.

By Nihar Mehta

To make sure the path is worth an explore, we’ve got to make some good decisions, and good decisions aren’t enough for us sometimes because they lack significance, they don’t create the impact we want or we expected to see, and its’ not anyone’s fault because we don’t see the change as we tend to be shortsighted.

Let’s take an example, assume you are one among 39% of the world population who are overweight (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight) now once you are sitting with your friends and they offer you some oily/greasy food, you say “no, thank you!”, you go home and check the weight, is it going to decrease? No, but what’s wrong? You made a good decision! Why isn’t it paying off?

It will pay off surely, but only when you build on that good decision and keep on doing that, capitalizing on that, the cumulative effect of those good decisions will be visible in the long run, there is a concept of time value that applies here called discounting. If you want to make a habit of making this decision of not eating junk food, for the first few times you will have to put a lot of effort to restrain yourself, that will take some inner strength or will power if you say and above that you will have no visible results whatsoever, but after sometime, it won’t require much effort (effort will be discounted.) and it would be easier for you to say “No, thank you” the 21^st time because you have already said is 20 times, and also constantly avoiding extra fats in your diet for a month or two will show up as a slight decrease in your weight, which wasn’t visible when you took the first decision.

I really didn’t want to reiterate the Chinese (irrespective of the country) bamboo example because its’ been there for ages in many self-help and non-fiction books, moral literatures and speeches (P.S. Special thanks to Whatsapp University) but why not once more!

The bamboo is a tree as such which despite all your efforts of watering and nurturing for the first four years won’t show any development or growth, the fifth year however is the charm, it grows some 80-90 ft. within some 40-50 days.

That won’t happen in the previous example like no change for a couple of months and bam!! One morning you wake up and have gone to L from XL, it will happen over a period of time, but the point is we need to keep on making the good decision of watering the bamboo, and it will lead to the massive growth, similarly we need to keep on making the good decisions about our diet.

This doesn’t apply only to the eating habits, it applies everywhere, maybe someone is addicted to smoking or drinking, or anything else. You make a decision; you keep on doing that and sooner or later you will have the results. And as you can see now, the key is YOU.

As someone said, “you are the star, the writer, the director of your show called life, and its you who determines whether your life is a super-hit or a flop.” and Jim Rohn adding to that, “The major key to your better future is you.” That’s why the poem says, “for better or worse, a boon or a curse” because no one is going to make a decision for you, you’ve got to do it yourself. And the reason why it can be a boon or a curse is because we don’t make the right decisions always, its just us humans, we are prone to making mistakes, so it’s a boon if you make the right decisions by yourself, and a curse in vice versa situation.

And the very next line, “It is what it is because of you, but the power to change is still within you” is what you should remember, you came down this road till here, if you wanted to be here when you started the journey, good for you, but if you didn’t, then start making the right decisions which will lead you where you want to be. And that is why the power to change is within you, because you are the one making the decision, so you not only have to make a good decision, but also do it on a consistent basis.

And I hope one day after making a lot of good decisions, when you reach where you wanted to, and you achieve what you wanted to, you look back and think “That was a path worth exploring” or as Robert Frost would write in his poem (The road not taken)­­–

“I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.”,

Let’s refer to the context of the poem and not content, meaning there is no implication that one should take the road less travelled, but one should definitely take the road which one wants to because that might make all the difference.

Written by:

Nihar Mehta