This article was inspired by a conversation I recently had with a friend. We were catching up on each other’s lives, when she said something along the lines of, “I have no choice, I have to do this!.

This is far too familiar a line for me!  I have heard and said those words so many times in my life too, during challenging circumstances.

People stay on their jobs, feeling frustrated and unfulfilled because they have no other choice but do it in order to support their families and fulfil their responsibilities.

Women stay on in unhappy marriages because they have no other choice! Who would financially support them? What would happen to their children?

Some adults move closer to their aging/sick parents, sometimes giving up on their lives and jobs to take care of them, because they have no choice.

Unhappy couples continue to drag their relationships in spite of it not working for them, because they don’t have a choice but to stay. How can they disappoint their family? What would people say?

We sometimes tell our children that they don’t have a choice but to be or do things a certain way.

People continue to put up with emotionally draining environments in spite of the stuck-ness and suffocation they experience. It’s no less than self-torture.

What I find very interesting is that when we say we don’t have a choice, we are truly convinced that there is no other choice.

The inherent belief system of “not having a choice” exists or we hold on to that with a lot of conviction due to various reasons. We don’t want to upset the system, create a stir and upset status quo.

We feel inadequate or ill-equipped to deal with difficult situations. It feeds our ego more to believe we don’t have a choice than to admit our unwillingness to take personal responsibility for where we are.

What this belief does is that it impairs our capacity of IMAGINATION. We are unable to magine a different outcome, a different reality, imagine other POSSIBILITIES!

It’s easier to blame it on fate, on other people, or other circumstances. It’s easier to believe that life happened to us and we are victims, because it takes the focus away from looking within ourselves.

And, by saying and believing that we don’t have a choice, we also end up making it our reality. We make our victim story come true! Our beliefs become our reality.

Truth is, WE ARE ALWAYS AT CHOICE. And the bigger truth is that with our present life and circumstances, WE HAVE CHOSEN TO BE THERE!

There are so many choices. And making these choices involve having a dream or desire for a different outcome regardless of where things are. It involves taking personal responsibility for the choices we made that got us here.

It involves making some hard choices. It involves stepping out of our comfort zone to create a reality from conscious choice and not the reality that got created while we went unconscious at the steering wheel of our life.

We are at conscious choice to create different outcomes and different experiences. We don’t give ourselves enough credit for that SUPERPOWER we each possess to create and live the life of our dreams.

You can choose to LIVE ON PURPOSE beginning this moment! It time to wake up and assume ownership and responsibility for yourself.