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I consider a choice to be the outcome of choosing. So often the choices of my friends and some family members have been so different for what I wanted for them. I wanted them to be successful. I wanted them to attend college and become great.
One of the most important lessons that I learned about choice was in the movie Mona Lisa Smile. The character, Katherine Ann Watson, wanted one of her prized students, Joan Brandwyn, not to become a housewife and mom and instead to choose college and scholarship. She wanted her to choose academia. Joan, the student, in one of the most profound moments in the movie turned to Katherine at her own engagement party and explained to her that being a future housewife was her choice. She wanted that. She did not feel pressure from anyone. She wanted to be a wife and a mom and eventually choose academia.
That was an old school Oprah “aha” moment.
We can want things for people. Heck, people want things for me. It’s because they see me in my future and I look better and I have greater than what’s in the present. But they see it for me and not me for myself. There are some people who spoke great things in my life and 10 years later they are coming to fruition. But truth is, it wasn’t until I made the choice to be or become that it happened in my life.
What other people choose for themselves is honestly none of my business and I have to respect those choices from a place of non-judgement. The same applies for myself. When I choose something, good or bad, the choice is on me. The consequences or rewards are mine.
So choose. I will choose. You choose. Stand in that choice. And let it be!
-Tam
– Tammy Rhodes, Consulting Editor, Garden Spices Magazine
Tammy Rhodes was born in Florence and raised in Muscle Shoals. “The Shoals is my home and I love it here.” She is an Administrative Assistant at the University of North Alabama, and is a minister, singer, director, actress, and poet. “I work in one of the most diverse offices on the campus of UNA. I am a proud dog mommy to my true loves, Shug and Doozy! I’ve been known to hum a little bit and to spit some spoken word every now and again. But mainly I am a thriving spirit trying every day to leave a positive imprint on the world.”
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