OK, maybe that’s a bit of an overgeneralization but it applies most of the time. Basically, what I am saying is that we are what we are because that’s what we’ve decided to be. We live where we live, do what we do and think what we think because that’s we’ve decided to do. Yes, I understand that there are some illnesses and other stuff that happens that tends to force us into a particular mode of operation. But by the same token, how we function within our situation and how we deal with the things we need to deal with is always our decision.

This takes us right back to one of my foundation principles - we believe what we believe because of our personal programming. Our present perception (whatever it is) of what is written in the preceding paragraph is absolutely correct based on our life experiences, input – and programming. Does that mean that there are no incorrect opinions and this is one of those “I’m OK, you’re OK so let’s hold hands and sing something” things? Oh, heck no! This just means that we all have our personal reasons for doing what we do and thinking what we think.

Unfortunately, none of us – repeat, none of us has been fortunate enough to get one hundred percent accurate and unbiased information and input into our little pea brains as we’ve trudged through life. As a result, we’re all playing our life game with a few cards missing from our deck. It’s almost a sure bet that we’ll never find all of ‘em, but I think the sporty thing to do is to do our best to search out at least a couple more cards before we revert back to our basic earth elements. And yeah, we’ll count the Jokers as worth keeping. (Maybe they’re really the ones we oughtta look for first! Just a thought.) Note: For those of you who are presently holding a partial deck that is only giving you a Jack high poker hand- heck, that’s good enough to open. Hang in there and keep playing!

Now that we’ve come out of the closet and admitted that we’re all screwed up to some extent, let’s get back to the initial subject. Our life – and nearly all of its components – is the result of our decisions that have been heavily influenced (or even controlled) by our programming. And yeah, we may have also been heavily influenced by other factors – namely people – but unless someone is holding a gun to our heads to “force” us to do what we’re doing, the reason we’re here at this point in our lives is because of the decisions we’ve made. Even with a gun aimed at our noggins, we still have a couple of options to choose from, don’t we?

For those of us who are completely satisfied with the way our lives are going in every little detail – we should take a lot of satisfaction in knowing that we have been extremely fortunate to have been able to make some very beneficial decisions. Back up a second here. The biggie word in the last sentence was “satisfied”. I didn’t say “happy”. We can be generally happy with the way things are going in our lives – and still not be satisfied. The way I look at it, if we have just one small thing we’d like to do differently or better then we’re not completely satisfied. Cool! That keeps us from joining the walking dead and trudging down our rut to the slime pit.