Matthew Kelly - The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose

E verything is a choice.

This is lifes greatest truth and its hardest lesson. It is a great truth because it reminds us of our power. Not power over others, but the often untapped power to be ourselves and to live the life we have imagined.

It is a hard lesson, because it causes us to realize that we have chosen the life we are living right now. It is perhaps frightening for us to think that we have chosen to live our life exactly as it is today. Frightening because we may not like what we find when we look at our lives today. But it is also liberating, because we can now begin to choose what we will find when we look at our life in the tomorrows that lie unlived before us.

What will you see when you look at your life ten years from now? What will you choose?

Life is choices.

You have chosen to live this day. You have chosen to read this book. You have chosen to live in a certain city. You have chosen to believe certain ideas. You have chosen the people you call friends.

You choose the food you eat, the clothes you wear, and the thoughts you think. You choose to be calm or restless, you choose to feel appreciative or ungrateful.

Love is a choice. Anger is a choice. Fear is a choice. Courage is a choice.

You choose.

Sometimes we choose the-best-version-of-ourselves,
and sometimes we choose a-second-rate-version
of-ourselves.

Everything is a choice, and our choices echo throughout our livesand into historyand on and on into eternity.

Most people never fully accept this truth. They spend their lives arguing for their weaknesses, complaining about their lot in life, or blaming other people for their weaknesses and their lot in life.

You may argue that you are forced to live in a certain city or drive a certain car, but it is not true. And if it is, it is true only temporarily and because of a choice you have made in the past.

We choose, and in doing so, we design our lives.

Some may say that we do not choose our circumstances. Youd be surprised. We have much more power over the circumstances of our lives than most men and women would ever admit. And even if circumstances are thrust upon us, we choose how we respond to those circumstances.

Others may argue that they did not choose the country they were born in or the parents they were born to. How do we know we didnt choose these things? We are all endowed with free will. Did we not have this free will before we were born? Perhaps one day we will realize that we have chosen much more than we have even imagined.

I hope that day is today.

For the day we accept that we have chosen to choose our choices is the day we cast off the shackles of victimhood and are set free to pursue the lives we were born to live.

Learn to master the moment of decision and you will live a life uncommon.

S everal years ago I found myself standing before a class of high school seniors in Cape May, on the Jersey shore, in the United States. I had been invited to speak to them about life beyond high school graduation, but I found myself more interested in what they might have to say than in what their teachers thought they needed to hear.

I began by asking them how long it would be until they graduated. In a burst of excitement and energy, they replied in unison, Eleven days.

What I really wanted was to enter into the unbounded territories of the hopes and dreams these young men and women held about their future. There were eighty-four students before me that morning, representatives of the future. I was curious. I wanted to know what they yearned for. I wanted to be invited into their hearts and minds.

I invited myself by asking, What do you want from life?

For a few moments there was silence. Then, as they realized that my question was not rhetorical, a young man called out, I want to be rich. I asked him why he wanted to be rich. So I can do whatever I want, was his reply. I asked him how much was enough. A million dollars, he said, and I remember wondering how many people think that a million dollars will change their lives.

Then I raised the question again.

A young woman said she wanted to be a doctor. I asked her why. So that I can help people, relieve suffering, and make a lot of money, she replied. I wished her well and hoped she would be able to keep her reasons in that order as the years passed.

I asked the question again: What else do you want from life?

A young man toward the back called out, I want a beautiful wife. His friends giggled, and I asked him if he had been successful in locating one yet. He said that he hadnt, and I sympathized with him, explaining that I had not, either.

Then I asked him if he knew what he was looking for in a woman. He said he did. So I explained that the best way to attract that kind of person was to become that kind of person.

I asked the question again: What else do you want from life?

This time a young man with a firm and confident voice said, The president. I want to be the president of the United States of America.

I then proceeded to ask him how he intended to achieve this goal. He unfolded for me and his fellow students a plan that included undergraduate studies in international business and political science, followed by law school, local political campaign involvement, a number of summer internships on Capitol Hill, a time in the United States Army, and an array of community service.

It was clear that this dream had not entered his head during this brainstorming session that I had forced upon these high school seniors. His wasnt a pipe dream or the vain dreaming we do while we sleep; rather, it was the dreaming that we do in the daylight hours, which gives birth to purposeful living and forms our future. Perhaps one day he will become the first African American president of the United States of America!

I wished him well in his endeavors. The mood had changed. The young minds before me had been dragged deeper into this session of dream making by the realization that one of their peers had already spent a lot of time thinking about this very question. So I asked it again: What else do you want from life?