You always have a choice...
Somewhere along the pathways of my life, I've picked up a few rules of life that I find to remain consistently true. They are probably cliche statements on their own but when you look at them as a set of values or core beliefs they become much more powerful. One of them, which has been on my mind a great deal lately is, "You always have a choice."
I was thinking about choices this morning as I was cleaning email up in my personal account before the crazy part of my day got started (i.e. before I left the house). One of the new items in my inbox was a newsletter from Kim Klassen's Beyond Layers class. It contained the quote you see in the photo above. (Click through on the image to my Flickr site if you want to see it a little larger.) I paired the quote with a photo I took while visiting Mt. Spokane in Spokane, Washington in July as well as with one of Kim Klassen's textures (Elevate - it was a free one from her Texture Tuesday list) and put this together.
I'm printing out a copy and hanging it on my bathroom mirror for a while. I really like the phrase "choose to perceive". Our perception of the world is our reality. I ran headlong against someone's perception of something today. We are both so locked into how we perceive the other person is portraying the same subject that we are no longer listening to what the other one is saying. We've stopped moving down the path together. Maybe it's time to turn around and go back and change perception or maybe it's time to continue down separate paths. That decision ultimately isn't mine in this specific case but it's a good reminder of what happens when we stop talking with one another and only talk at one another.
Do you need to shift your perception on something? Is there a choice in front of you blocking your path right now?