The Choice - Og Mandino

(excerpts from the book by Og Mandino)

THE KEY TO A BETTER LIFE

Man or woman… wherever these words have found you, turn away from your travail and struggles of the hour and give me your hand. Come with me on a mission of exploration, a journey of the mind that may help you to change your life for the better.

We are not, you and I, searching for gold or silver or oil but for something far more valuable – a key – a simple key that will unlock our prison door and free us from our hell of unhappiness, insecurity, and failure so that we can at least have the opportunity to fulfill our dreams. That same key, if we find it, will unlock the greatest puzzle box of humanity and unveil the answer to a question hat has haunted and occupied most of mankind for centuries…

Is there a better way to live?

We have been told that man is the only animal that knows nothing, and can learn nothing without being taught. He can neither speak nor walk nor eat nor do anything at the prompting of nature except weep.

During the rush of centuries we have been taught many things, but our weeping did not diminish our as our knowledge increased. Tears of despondency, failure, frustration, self-pity, helplessness and fear are as common today as when Homer cried that among all creatures that breathe on earth and crawl on it there is not anywhere a living thing more dismal than man.

Why is this so? Why are we so unhappy? Have we not been told that we were created in the image of God, and did we not receive complete dominion over this world? When did we reject our image? How did we abdicate our power? What went wrong? Why do we feel, in our hearts, that we are as unfulfilled today as were our ancestors whose every waking moment was spent in struggles merely to survive?

Did God abandon us somewhere along the way? Did He grow weary of our failure to take full advantage of the minds and talents He breathed into us, and the paradise He willed us, and move on to other worlds, other galaxies, leaving us to fend for ourselves? Would He, in His infinite knowledge, do such a thing after building so many contradictions into each of us that He certainly must have foreseen that trouble was inevitable?

Man is the only animal that blushes and laughs, and yet this same creature, who can be so tender and loving, is the only living thing that constantly preys on it’s own species. Why? Why does he kill, steal, rape, pillage, lie and cheat if he is, in truth, the pinnacle of creation? Why doe he, through his foolish actions, condemn himself to a life of servitude, misery, failure, and frustration if he is the center of the cosmos and the recipient of so many blessings from God? And – if we have been living in this sorry state for so many millennia, is there any reason to believe that we can change now, that we can discover a better way to live?

That is what our quest is all about, yours and mine, so hear me out and hear me well. What we can accomplish together may well determine how you will spend the rest of your days.

Let us embark on this journey, as all journeys should begin, with a clear understanding of where we are when we start out. Your response to five questions should accurately fix your position, your present location on life’s winding road:

1) Are you in control of your life?

2) Are you at peace with yourself and those around you?

3) Are you proud of your life’s accomplishments?

4) Are you and your family enjoying the fruits of your work?

5) Are you happy and contented?

Simple questions, yes. But difficult to answer. Painful. Painful because those who can reply to all five in the affirmative, truthfully, are as rare as a twenty-carat flawless diamond. Gather these fortunate people together, from the four corners of our earth, and you would see that they are only a minute percentage of our six billion inhabitants.

Why? Why can we not live in peach and tranquility and pride and contentment and happiness on a bountiful sphere that was willed to us with love?

Are we merely puppets – actors and actresses on a stage – following scripts of prophecies made my anguished wise men of the past? Was Job correct when he cried, “Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble”? Was Sophocles bemoaning our true fate when he asked, “What trouble is beyond the range of man? What heavy burden will he not endure?” or Lecretius when he dipped his reed in ink and wrote, “O miserable minds of men! O blinded Beasts! In what darkness of life and in how great dangers is passed this term of life whatever its duration!”

It is an easy game to mock man’s efforts to live a better life since he was banished from Eden. Huge following have been attracted by those who scornfully declare that all mortals are fools and that we are all born with halters around our neck. The words, echoing through our history and literature, provide an easy refuge and excuse for us when we fail, when we finally grow weary of trying to improve our conditions, when we have been struck down by forces beyond our control, when a succession of setbacks had drained our resources. Defeat, somehow, seems easier to bear knowing that this was the fate prophesied for us by so many men of genius. Thus we allow ourselves to drown in a sea of mediocrity after little struggle, or we allow our true potential to rust because of disease, or we wander through what could have been the best years of our lives filled with bitterness and self-pity and catch only an occasional fleeting glimpse of what might have been. Prophecy fulfilled.

Why have we allowed this tragedy, this plague of failure and unhappiness, to infect us? Why are we able to conquer dreaded diseases, circle distant planets, vie events thousands of miles away from the comfort of our homes, design machines and technology that can tend to our every wish, transplant our own organs, even create life in a test tube and yet make so little progress in elevating man’s opinion of himself and his many talents?

Are the prophets of doom, both past and present, correct? Are we here for no purpose? Is this world, this spinning ball that we inhabit, not much other than an anthill, where some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all go to and fro on a little heap of dust? Is our life, our most valuable possession, no more than a little gleam of time between two eternities with no second chance for us, ever?

What is it that in the most prosperous and vital nation that ever existed, more than three hundred thousand individuals attempt to end their lives each year? Why are we forced to treat more than four thousand new mental cases every twenty-four hours and stand by helplessly while the number of heroin addicts and cocaine addicts and alcoholics rise to epidemic proportions? I this how we must live, dreading the failures and horrors of each day with so much passion that we are willing to escape even if our flight destroys us?

There must be a better way to live.

There is a better way to live!

When we were given dominion over the world, we were also given dominion over ourselves. God is not our navigator. It was never His intention to chart a course for each of us and thus place us all under His bondage. Instead, He bestowed each of us with intellect and talent and vision to map our own way, to write our own Book of Life in any manner that we choose.

Choice! The key is choice. You have options. You need not spend your life wallowing in failure, ignorance, grief, poverty, shame, and self-pity. But, hold on! If this is true, then why have so many among us apparently elected to live in that manner? Who would be fool enough to choose failure over success, ignorance over knowledge, poverty over wealth? No one! So how do we explain that vast multitude of humanity that continues to exist in hopeless, mediocrity, unfulfilled, frustrated, envious, drained of confidence and self-esteem, unable to meet even their daily obligation and sad – so sad that each new day produces no fresh seedling of hope, only more weeds of despair and showers of tears?

The answer is simple and obvious. Those who live in unhappy failure have never exercised their options for the better things of life because they have never been aware that they had any choices! Life to them has never been a game of skill where study and hard work and courage and perseverance can be brought into play to turn failure into success, misery into happiness. Instead these vast legions of losers look upon life as a war where they are always on the defensive, struggling with their own inferior talents against superior forces – a war they are always doomed to lose because they have come to believe that the only choice they have is to survive, or perish. How sad!

I you know what it is to eat the crumbs of failure, to labor drudgingly with only unhappiness as your constant companion, to sleep with tears of despair and hopelessness, let the dark curtain be pulled back for you. Look closely. Consider the choices still available to you, choices that you can elect immediately, no matter what your present condition may be, so that you can live the remainder of your life as your Creator intended for you to live – in glory, not in shame.

Adopt the words that follow as your words. Clutch them to your heart and let these old principles, these forgotten rules, these sacred canons of the past, all become a public declaration of your intention to live a better life. This is your personal manifesto…

So many of us awake each morning with dread in our heart. To face the monotony of another day with its ceaseless toil and pressures for so little reward is agony. We bathe, put on our costume and reluctantly force ourselves to crawl from our cocoon to confront a world we imagine is ready to devour us or trample us underfoot. Each day repeats the drudgery of the last, except that the hours seem to grow painfully longer as the years pass. The body is weary. The mind is numb. The obligations increase. The future is dim. Finally, the day ends. Blessed sleep. Oblivion. And then the sun rises again.

I shall choose a better way to live!

Henceforth, each morning I will awake and fall to my knees and give thanks to God for the gift that only He can bestow – a new day. This is my most priceless possession. If ever I should feel ungrateful and treat this miracle lightly, I need only open my morning newspaper to the obituary page and scan the long list of names there – names of people who would be most pleased to change places with me despite my problems. There are no problems in a cemetery. I would rather be here than there. I am grateful for this fresh opportunity. I will show my gratitude in everything I do, this day. A sundial counts only hours of sunshine, but I will count them all.. I will treasure each minute. I am immortal until my work is done and I have only begun. Thank you for these new hours, God,. I needed this day to prove that your faith in my ability was not misplaced. I depart from home smiling. The birds- when did I last hear them singing? How fortunate I am to be here.

So many of us spend our lives searching for happiness. Like children hunting Easter eggs, we dash hither and yon hoping to discover some mystical bluebird. Life would be so different, we sigh, if only we were happy. And so, one hurries home to be happy and another flees home to be happy. One is getting married to be happy and another is getting divorced to be happy. One take expensive cruises to be happy and another labors overtime to be happy. Endless search. Wasted years. Madness. Always the moon is out of reach, the fruit not quite ripe, the wine too dry. Shadows. Tears. Our pillow knows the truth.

I choose a better way to live!

Henceforth, my pursuit of happiness has ended. How blind I have been! Now I know that happiness hides not in that new house, that new career, that new friend. And it is never for sale. When I cannot find contentment in myself, it is useless to seek it elsewhere. Whenever I depend on things outside myself to supply me with joy I am doomed to disappointment. Happiness, I see now, has nothing to do with getting. It consists of being satisfied with what I’ve got and what I haven’t got. Few things are necessary to make the wise man happy while no amount of material wealth would satisfy a fool. I am not a fool. I have drawn a circle around me. Whenever I reach across it I will be giving, not taking. My needs are few. So long as I have something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for, I shall be happy. Now I know that the only source of happiness is within me, and I will begin to share it. Like perfume, I know that I cannot pour it on others without getting a few drops on myself.

So many of us count the hours of work as slavery. We limp through each day as if there were irons on our legs, our hands reluctantly on the task at hand, our eyes always on the clock. Let this pass, we pray, so that we can escape from this abominable place into the darkness. We flinch at the voice of authority, despising the power that decrees how we should act, how we must think on the job. We feel so helpless. Like a child. Disobey and we will be punished. Our food, our shelter, our very existence ordains that we must labor. Is this our total fate? Are these tools, this sales talk, this lifeless computer, my entire future until death frees me? Is this all there is? Let me rest.

I choose a better way to live!

Henceforth I will deal with any chore that confronts me, no matter how menial, no matter how arduous, no matter how boring, as if my entrance into heaven depended on it being completed to the best of my ability. Now I know that if I always do more than is expected of me, in all I’m asked to do, I cannot help but take long strides toward a better and more fulfilling career. My task of the moment is not a life sentence. I have the key to free myself. All I need to do is throw myself into my work with enthusiasm, with initiative, and with love, and the shackles will fall from my legs. I am not a cog. I am the wheel and I must prove it. How? By demonstrating with action that I am far more valuable than the coins I now receive. This job of the moment is only a way station. God had bigger plans for me, but they will never be achieved by accident. I must earn the privilege of dealing with greater challenges. I can grow, right here, right now, with whatever is at hand to do. My reward will come. I have faith.

So many of us think ourselves into smallness, into inferiority, by thinking downward. We are held back by too much caution. We are timid about venturing. We are not bold enough. And so we die before we reach middle age, although we will not be lowered into the ground until we pass three score and ten. What happened to the grand dreams of our youth? Suicide. Struck down by our caution, our lack of faith in ourselves and our abilities. Opportunities? There are many. But always there was risk. Do we dare? We vacillate. Time hurries by. Opportunity gone. We anguish. The years roll on. Finally, we convince ourselves that it’s too late and settle for cheap imitations of life. We envy the achievers. How lucky they are.

I choose a better way to live!

Henceforth, I will take every risk and embrace every opportunity that may provide a better life for me and my family. I no longer believe that a rolling stone gathers no moss. Better to be in motion, even if the energy is wasted, than buried forever in a shady plot. That will come soon enough. I will despise myself later if I look back on my life and realize that I had the talent and the ability to do great things but could not find the courage to try. I know what I can do, and I know how little I have done. I have frittered away my opportunities like children at the seashore who fill their hands with sand and then let the grains all fall through their open fists. It is not too late for me. I can still fill my hands. I can still shape a future of success and happiness. I am capable of great wonders, and now I know that my achievements will never rise higher than my faith in myself. I have new faith. I was made in the image of God. I was not created to fail. Defeat? Possible. Quit? Never again!

These four positive life choices, available to all at no cost, are merely a small sampling of the myriad of options that are available to your every day. Now that you understand the thought process involved, now that you see how easy it is to separate the wheat from the chaff in your life, now that you have been alerted to the truth that you do have choices all along the way, this listing of our common faults and their cures need go no further. The world is already too filled with rulebooks, with “how-to” guides, with seminars and cassettes dispensing the secrets of success that are not secrets at all. The last thing you need is another set of principles or exhortations on how to make it big, how to accumulate wealth, how to restore your wandering self-esteem. And if the truth were known, we humans seldom pay much attention to columns of instructions, regulations, laws, and canons, no matter how important or beneficial they may seem. Consider the most important guides for living we have ever received, the Ten Commandments. Even those sacred laws are frequently ignored since less than half of all those who piously profess to believe in them can recite more than five!

And what about happiness, peace of mind, contentment, serenity? If you know choose to raise your sights and reach for success, if you choose to pursue fame and glory, must these all-important qualities of a good life be sacrificed? Are they the terrible price you and your family must always pay, as have so many others, to reach your new goals?

The choice is up to you. Do you want it all – success plus happiness and peace of mind and contentment and serenity? Isn’t that too much to expect? No! Open your heart and you will find that it is not difficult. Just choose to live each day as two others of long ago prayed they might live, two others that were special messengers of God. Take the time to memorize their humble pleas, combined here only because they seem to have sprung from the same loving heart:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Now you are free!

At last you can unlock your cell door and walk with head high toward the future you deserve, knowing that God does not require you to live on credit; He pays us what we earn as we earn it, good or evil, heaven or hell, according to our choice.

There is a better way to live… and you have discovered the missing key!

Choose to use it!

Og Mandino, The Choice, Bantam Books, April 1984, pages 141-154