Choose your own adventure!

When I was growing up they used to have these books called the Choose Your Own Adventure series. You would start reading the book and it would present a scenario to you such as “You are walking down a long hall in a castle. You come to the end of the hallway and there are two doors, a red door and a blue door.” Then at the bottom of the page it would say “If you choose to open the red door turn to page 3. If you want to open the blue door turn to page 4.”…and so on….

I loved those books so much as a kid because they allowed me to determine my own story. Sure, it didn’t let me set the stage of each scenario, but it did allow me to choose for myself what decision I would make when faced with each scenario and how I was going to deal with it. It was so exciting to be in charge of my own choices in those stories.

For some reason today those books came to my mind and I couldn’t help but think about how our life really is just one big Choose Your Own Adventure series – Life presents us with different scenarios and with each one we are given a choice of which decision we want to make…in essence we choose which page of the story we will jump to next… We have absolute control…maybe not of the scenarios in our story, but of how we deal with each one. And it is in how we deal with them that leads us to the next chapter and the next… And just like it was exciting to be in charge of my own choices in the Choose Your Own Adventure stories I would read, it’s exciting to be in charge of our own choices in the life story we are each living.

Too often we can let ourselves get caught up in a “woe is me” mentality where we convince ourselves that life is happening to us rather than recognizing that no matter what life brings we still have the ability to Choose Our Own Adventure! So sit back, look at the current choices you have laid before you in life and then make a decision!. Then turn to that page and see what exciting place it takes you 🙂   IT’S SO EXCITING!!!

~Amy Rees Anderson

3 Comments

  • Sunil Modi says:

    Never read the book but an interesting lead into the message. Nicely done.

  • Jane says:

    When my granddaughter used to spend weekends with me, I read her books like that. What a treasure to be reminded of that today. My heart is warm. Thank you, Amy. Even more to your point though – we do get to choose many things that alter our lives. Starting with attitude, we can make a difference in our moments that all add up to our life.

  • Katie says:

    Love this Amy. Great analogy and important reminder. Much appreciated!!

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