Choose Your Own Adventure

Do you remember the classic "Choose Your Own Adventure" books from when we were kids? I remember going through a phase of reading them over and over again when I was in elementary school (of course, that may also be related to the fact that our school had a pretty sad collection of books when I was in elementary school, so it was "Anne of Green Gables", Janette Oke books or "Choose Your Own Adventure") (Of course I may be most definitely am exaggerating, but still).

Anyways, my point, I'm sure I was going to make one..... RIGHT! Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA from now on, cuz wow, that's kinda long to type) -- I just can't help but wonder what life would be like if it was a little more like a CYOA book. I mean, yes, we make choices about our life, but don't you ever wonder what your life would be like if a few major decisions were done differently?

Don't get me wrong, overall I'm fairly happy with where I've ended up. But as I watch friends from high school get married, have their first kid and then their second, and as I watch guys and girls a few years younger than me (who I can't help but still think about as "kids") get married and start their lives together, I can't help but be curious about what my life would be like if I was married and had a kid or two. Especially if I knew that a few pages away was the life I was living today. I just wonder, if we had that ability to see our lives at different stages, and the results of different decisions, if we would be happier with what we have?

Of course, it is a good thing that my life is NOT a CYOA book because I seem to recall always picking the options that I thought would be more exciting, and then ending the story WAY before I was ready for it to be over, forcing me to go back and pick a less exciting option, allowing the story to continue. I think I'll leave the choices to the Big Guy and watch my own story unfold.

My New Blog

Welcome to my new blog! I can't quite believe that I'm actually STARTING a new blog, but I'm hoping that this will give me a place to share my thoughts on the world without spamming up everybody's Facebook pages with my frequent status updates. It should also give me an outlet to rant, comment or celebrate the world around me, which should cut down significantly the number of shower conversations I have with myself. I haven't quite decided what will all appear on this blog, but it should be an interesting sight to see.

When I mentioned on Facebook a few weeks ago that I was thinking of starting a blog, I hit a roadblock. The first step in starting a blog is picking a name, and a URL address. It is amazing how many blogs exist already with the countless unimaginative names that I dreamed up. So, waiting for inspiration, I continued living my life, blog-free. It wasn't until a snowy afternoon (this snowy afternoon, to be precise), that a dear Doctor friend of mine said something that struck my interest.

"The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant." 

Yes, granted this is from a fictional character, but I think it is a meaningful statement nonetheless. It also fits quite nicely with my recent pact with myself to focus more on the "haves" in my life versus the "have-nots," and really, isn't that something we can all benefit from?