To me, making new year resolution is categorized under the ‘mandatory’ column instead of the ‘good to do’. I am a believer of the ‘law of attraction’, or whatever law you like to call it. I believe that once you have your eyes set on a concrete target, and of course make reasonable attempt to make it happen, it WILL happen. Sounds a lot like what most religions preach, doesn’t it?
The recent 2 books that I’ve been reading (not so sure which ones, probably Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert or The Servant by James C. Hunter) quoted the same story. It goes something like this… A man repeatedly and diligently prayed to god every day without fail, “God, please please please, I wish to be rich.” Day after day, he prayed with all his might. Eventually, God could not stand it anymore and said to the man, “Son, please please please, go buy a lottery!” A simple yet compelling story.
Spiderman II was on TV just now. I can’t help but to quote the final words from Peter Parker – “You always have a choice.” I never understood the significance of this phrase until one day in 2006, a mentor of mine went berserk on me when I said, “It was just natural. No choice.”
We were talking about my journey before I landed where I was at that time. He (the mentor) asked why I had chosen to major in Information System Management, why I did not stay back in the US to work, why I chose to work with that company. My answers were along the line of… the options were limited… I didn’t have many choices… it just seemed natural that I ventured into these fields. Hearing these ‘irresponsible words’, as I would now call them, he went on and on on how we are always responsible for our lives, and we always have a choice! Always. I remember him saying, “When you accepted this job, you made a decision to take on the roles and responsibilities. You do have a choice to reject the offer and do other things, whether it is sitting at home doing nothing, or looking for another job opportunity. When you decided to come home after graduation, you made a decision to not stay in the US and work. If you decided to work in the US, you would try hard to make way for that to happen!”
You get the point. Since then, “I don’t have a choice” is forever out of my vocabulary… because you always have a choice.
I guess I should make this holiday break more productive by writing down my resolutions :) Please do the same if you have not done so!
