What is the best decision you ever made?  Why?

I don’t think I could pick just one decision as “the best”.  I’ve been around 36 years and in that time, I’ve made a lot of decisions.  Some good, some not quite so good.  Like the post from Phoenix the other day, who knows what is good and what is bad?  Decisions we make one day might strike us as a bad decision, but an hour, a day, a week, a decade down the road, we may find that in hindsight what we thought was a bad decision at the time led us to making a tremendously good decision later.

I have made decisions in my formative years to do or say things that weren’t so nice.  I’m not proud of those decisions, but I don’t regret them and because I made them, I learned that saying the first thing that comes to my mind when I’m angry isn’t the best thing to do; when I did that, I hurt people’s feelings.

I made decisions to fall in love with people who were not the best people with whom to fall in love.  I gave my all (not THAT “all”) to relationships that were doomed to fail and suffered horrible bouts of a broken heart.  But, I don’t regret those past loves, because they each taught me something about myself, human nature, relationships, what I’d accept or not and ultimately that for me, loving people with my whole self (once I know I can trust them) is just what I have to do to “be me”.  Even if that means I open myself up for heartache…. horrible, gut-wrenching heartache.

Recently, I’ve made decisions I’m really proud of and would probably qualify as “the best” – living an authentic life, living my life and living it for me.  Each of us has a lot of outside influences trying to get us to do this or that, to be a little more A and a lot less B.  Screw that.  You aren’t living my life, and neither is anyone else.  I have to do what I have to do to make sure I enjoy my time while I’m here on Planet Earth.  No one else has to agree with it (though Mr. Muse does have to live with me… so there is that), but they have to understand that I’m not living my life for them.

The other aspect of this decision to live my life for myself, is saying, “Yes!”  Not “yeah”.  Not “okay, I guess.”  YES!  Even if the question you’re asked sounds scary and “out there” because it’s outside your norm – try saying “Yes” (except in the case of illegal drugs like meth and cocaine and heroine and stuff…. have you SEEN what it does to your insides???) for a change.  It’ll change your life.

Now… if I could just get Mr. Muse to say “YES!” to learning to ballroom dance*….

*Update:  Mr. Muse agreed to ballroom dance lessons in 2013.