So I was at a friend’s house the other day and noticed that he and his wife had an old Nintendo system from back in the day.  Immediately I knew that it was about to go down!  The first game that I wanted to play was of course Tetris…one of the greatest of all time!  So we popped it in and he wanted to warm up with a few games of Dr. Mario….a Tetris-esque game, but not quite the same.  Then we switched over to the real deal and began to party like it’s 1999.  I have to admit, I was quite rusty.  I definitely could tell he had been playing because he was sticking it to me.  After we played numerous games (and after his wife jumped in and wooped up on me a few times), I started thinking a little about the game itself and noticed something…both sides get the exact same pieces thrown their way.

You might be thinking, “Hey Captain Obvious, thanks for pointing that out”…but there’s a reason I’m bringing this up.  Both sides are given the exact same pieces in the exact same order…yet at the end of the game, someone wins and the other person loses.  They start the same, get the same options/opportunities, and yet end up with totally different results.  How does this happen?  Again Captain Obvious chimes in…it’s because of choices.  We all think differently…we are all made up differently…we all have had different influences in our lives that have shaped our choices. By making these choices, we end up with different results, despite being given the same pieces.

I think this creates some good imagery that parallels life.  Most of us in America have been given most of the same opportunities.  We don’t all have trust funds or drive Range Rovers…I’m not talking going to that extreme…but we do all have much more than we could ever need.  We all have had the opportunity to get an education, no one that I know of that actually makes the effort goes without meals or shelter, up until this point in the Economy most people have been able to get a job (although some have “chosen” their way out of one)…and there’s a church on every corner (right next to Starbucks and across the street from McDonalds).  These are just a few examples of similar opportunities that we all have had in our lives…and yet at the end of our lives, we end up in different places.  I realize that along the way we are dealt different hands…some deal with illnesses, some with other forms of injustice, and these definitely play into where people end up.  But you could also use this on the flip as part of the same argument we were discussing before…most of us are given very similar opportunities and ALL of us are dealt hands of injustice and hardship throughout our lives...so what’s the point??

The point is that I think our choices are much more critical than we ever realize.  We choose the different paths that we are going to take every single day…from major decisions like who we’re going to marry and where we are going to live to minor decisions like what we are going to eat for dinner. These choices are important and shape our lives and where we end up.  What you choose to eat, over and over throughout the years, could have an effect on whether or not you become obese or even get cancer.  Whether you spend all your time at work or on your computer instead of choosing to spend time with your wife and kids could drastically affect the outcome of your marriage.  Whether or not you are willing to work out differences with people, to forgive and leave things in the past, can lead to a life full of baggage and bitterness.

Do you ever look at people and ask yourself how they ended up the way they are?  I know I do…and I think I’ve figured it out…

Choices.