A new life

Choice is Destiny’s soul mate.
– Sarah Ban Breathnach

I find myself pondering often this year about choice…our free will is such a magnificent gift. It not only allows us to do what we want to do, but even more…to be who we want to be (or at least become).

I was reading the other day, and there was a line from The Natural, which I never saw, but the line was this:

“Most of us live two lives: the one we learn with, and the life we live after that.”

It got me thinking about my choices, about the life I want to be living. It made me think of my past, my present, and where I am headed. I feel like I have become an entirely different person in the past year. I feel like my old life was the one I learned from, and now I am trying to live a new one. The new one involves giving away everything to become who and what I truly desire to become. I have learned that we truly can have any life we want, and feel any way that we want, and it is truly up to our choosing. Our Father loves us and would never force us to feel a certain way, but if we do want to grow beyond what we are, He will bless us with the chance to do so. It will probably, as President Eyring tells us, get steeper the farther up we move. But it is only to help us to shed who we were and truly become more like the Savior.

I realized again the other day that I do not have to be the natural person that I at times become too easily, and at times fight so hard against. I truly can choose my “new life” over the old. It is an everyday choice, though. And the old is so tempting, so much easier. It also allows me to still feel sorry for all that I wanted and planned and didn’t get. But the new allows me to let it go and move forward into a better life, one I can’t imagine, but which waits for me if I choose it. It is a daily choice.

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

-Joseph Campbell

The truly encouraging part is, I don’t think it matters how young or old we are. We can have that new life any time we decide to. We don’t have to wait until we’re older to have it. But if we’re older, I’m convinced it hasn’t passed us by, either. It can start whenever we’re ready to let go of what we want and what we have designed, and get ready for the life He planned for us.

10 Responses

Leave a Reply to phoenixfire Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *