It’s completely up to You

“What you do, who you’re with, and how you feel about the world around you… it’s completely up to you.” – Mike Rowe

There isn’t much more that I can or need to say about this quote.

In my own life, when I start to feel frustrated or want to complain about where I am at, I often have to revisit this idea.

What you DO

Every day when you wake up and roll out of bed, you decide what happens next. You can go to work, or you can face the consequences of not showing up. No pay, maybe you get fired, get behind on bills…lose your house. None of that sounds fun and it’s the main driving point getting most of us out there.

Whether you work for yourself or for someone else, you get to choose how good of a job you do. Do you want to be known as someone that half assed it, or someone that went above and beyond?

The choice is yours and you will reap the benefits or repercussions.

Who you’re with

When you are growing up, you are thrust into school, church, summer camps, sports teams, and many other places where you are surrounded by random people. Chances are, most of these people are not who you would choose to be around given the opportunity.

As I age, I find more and more that there is a very specific ‘type’ of person that I enjoy being around.

The kind of people I want to be around are passionate, caring, hard working, have serious thoughts about their future, compassionate towards others, and much more.

I feel strongly that my ‘team’ in life right now reflects the kind of person I want to be and want to surround myself with.

It’s my choice.

How you feel about the world around you

Just because we are bombarded by media showing us the terrible truths about people around the world does not mean we have to take that as the final answer.

There is always going to be violence. Those in power are often not going to have the best interests of the people they represent in mind. People are generally going to suck.

You don’t have to be that way, and you don’t have to see people that way.

The mere fact that you are alive and breathing, have access to the internet to read this post, is really unthinkable. Life as we know it is magical and should be looked at as such. It might be the worst day you’ve ever had, but that just means all the rest of your days on Earth can only get better!

Keep an open mind and give people a chance to prove they are not as bad as we are conditioned to believe.

Smile

Life is hard, real hard, but you get to share it with some good people. You have opportunities every day to do what you want to do, with people you want to do it with.

Think about that for just a second.

What is it that you really want to be doing right now? If you were doing that right this second, would you be smiling?

Are you smiling now that you thought about it?

Keep your head up and work hard to trade in the things you do not want, for things you do want. Only YOU can make that change.