Choices

"It's all about choices," my Dad used to say.
It was one of those annoying 'answers to everything' that used to irritate me like mad at 15, make me smile at 20... and today, at the grand old age of 32, makes me nod wisely.

Today, I no longer have the privilege of hearing him utter these ubiquitous words, but were he around, I would happily endure them one more time.
Luckily, though, I am an excellent pupil, so I have now learned to say them to myself (a shadow of the mentor hovering benevolently somewhere close...).

We get to points in our life when the choices seem more critical, more laden with consequences, than others.
Have kids? Have another kid? Move? Marry? Quit the city? Opt out? Opt in?
(no implied order, here, of course... It's just about timing, and taking one path rather than another).

Now, I can choose to sit tight in the job I've got - "comfort zone" personified: zero challenge but a nice reassuring dollop of stability... - or I can choose to move on.
I can pick up the phone, overcome my natural reserve, sell myself. Networking.
As the days slip by, the results far exceed my expectations, and I realise that I can do it.
The flutter of excitement: the call of change, the certainty that if change occurs, it will because I made it happen, and only because I made it happen.

I never thought of myself as an "ambitious" person. As though the very term "ambitious" was tinged with capitalist greed... or connotations of being a less than devoted mother.
"Of COURSE you're an ambitious person!" exclaims my boss, when I boldly tell him of my plans.
"You are not content to sit tight: you have goals, you like to push yourself, tu es très volontaire..."

I am?
Yes, perhaps I am.
The comfort zone is familiar and friendly and they let you out at 5 pm.
The rest is unknown.
But the really important thing to remember, of course, is that we DO have choices: about who to marry, where to live, how to live, where to work.
And the very fact that our lives are determined by Choice is the most immense of privileges, the greatest gift we could hope for.