*Click on the day of the month for the daily quote.*

The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do.
The hard part is doing it....General H. Norman Schwarzkopf.

If you're anything like me you hate to make choices :-) But there are times when it is impossible not to choose. I just read a quote by Neil Peart that says "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." I do a lot of avoiding the choice. I have always told myself it is because I "choose to be nice" and let others choose what they want and I take what is left or do whatever they decide. However, as I have been getting to know myself through all these quotes, I realize it is important to actually participate in life. So, sometimes it is my turn to choose :-) Like it or not!!!

If you follow my site, you know that whatever is happening to me is what I tend to share on my pages....especially here on quote of the day. It is my place to share my thoughts about the quotes and authors. As I am confronted with things in my life, I seem to start finding a lot of quotes about that subject. Just to go back to the birth of my site and walk through what has happened to me....here's how things have developed. 

I first started searching for the meaning of love, and what I discovered was the beauty of love. Then in November of '99, I read the quote "Love is friendship set on fire" in Bryan's profile and thought how wonderful it would be to have a friend like that. Notice how I always apply everything to the other person and how great it would be "to have a friend like that" and "to be loved" :-) Anyway, at that point I began to search for friendship quotes. And as beautiful as I had come to see love....well, I saw that friendship is more so. La Rochefoucauld said this about friendship...."However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship." I was surprised by La Rouchefoucauld's statement. I realized that I am supposed to be learning "to love" and learning "to be a friend like that" :-) I think it is going to be a lifetime lesson for me :-) Eleanor Roosevelt said...."In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility." 

Even though I am faced with choices about little somewhat insignificant things each day....I have been faced with a few major life-changing choices. The first choice that I am sure has affected all my other choices is to believe in God. For me this is sooo simple. I believe there is one God and He created everything. He sent his Son Jesus Christ to earth to die for anyone who would trust Him as their Savior. I realize that this is a very personal choice. One I believe everyone is confronted with at some point. Because I believe....I see God everywhere. He is very visible in the world. But as the quotes say, believing gives me eyes to see. For me talking to God and trusting that He is watching out for me just IS. I don't consciously think about it, I simply KNOW it is true :-) To be honest, my childlike faith sometimes drives other people crazy :-) 

However, my faith in God doesn't exclude me from having to live each day making decisions about my future. In junior high I desired to get a computer and service to AOL. Having access to making money in my family's business allowed me to do this. It was wonderful....for about three months!!! Which is all it would have lasted had AOL not started their unlimited monthly fee!!! Anyway, AOL and my computer changed my life. I was obsessed. Unless you have ever experienced the "gotta be online feeling" you could NEVER know how horrible it was!!! 

My point of all this is.....choosing to love God and trust Him changed my life....yet God still allows me to do as I please....I just suffer the consequences :-) There is a beautiful quote about this by Marsha Sinetar. Ms. Sinetar says...."I so love the Spanish proverb 'God says, 'Choose what you will and pay for it,' which stresses that life holds no easy answers, that conscious choices are often costly ones. We must live with and pay for their consequences. Understanding this, we learn what it means to be fully human. Furthermore, we can exploit every delay as a cycle of growth." 

The words of Ms. Sinetar definitely describe my online life. My choice. I made the choice and I paid the consequences. I hurt many people. But for the second part of Ms. Sinetar's quote...."we learn what it is to be human....we can exploit every delay as a cycle of growth." I'd like to think this happened to me. I have tried to make a distinction between online life and real life....I have learned there really isn't one. We are who we are. 

I know the Internet is a wonderful tool allowing doctors to perform intricate operations thousands of miles from their patients via a computer and the hands of a surrogate surgeon. Teachers and professors share knowledge, again around the world in classrooms far removed from each other. Wonderful life-saving, life-changing events....made possible through the internet. Families and friends stay in touch....24/7. We are always connected if we so desire. There are sooo many wonderful opportunities available on the internet. Even though the web is such a wonderful tool for knowledge....for me it was mind-possessing and robbed me of happiness. 

All this brings me to my third major choice....my website. Mahatma Gandhi states...."My life is my message." And so, I have tried to weave my life here among these pages in order to share my faith and my experience. I am not proud of my past. As I have said, my choice to live online hurt many people who mean sooo very much to me....but I did it unintentionally. However, my experience online showed me God and His love in a very beautiful way. For the first time, I saw God as my Friend....allowing me the freedom to make myself miserable!!! I have been cautioned that for some....life online is a choice and a happy one. I can finally understand this. But I was choosing to "escape" :-) 

All this brings me to this month's calendar....based on choices. For about the last six months I have been faced with some personal choices. And, as usual, quotes about choice and choosing just sorta appear in the midst of my love quote searches!!! Don't know how that happens :-) Anyway, since I am dealing with the subject, I am passing what I have been finding on to you. 

I have always loved this quote....keep in mind for me always and quotes means for just over two years now!!! This one is by Henri Nouwen...."Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us. Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing--sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death--can take that love away." The experience of life online was all these things for me. I was often physically ill....from lack of fresh air and sunshine. I failed to do my best in school. The emotional distress is indescribable :-) Oppression and war? It was a battle....I mean nothing interfered with my time online. And death....it may seem melodramatic, but I was dying. My spirit was broken, and I just didn't care. It was my life....my choice. 

The best way for me to sum this up is to say I was choosing to be unhappy. There is no other way to say this....God sent someone into my life to show me love. When I saw that love and how beautiful it is....I also saw that I would only have that when I began to care and live each day. I was faced with a choice.  I had to do the opposite of what I just listed above....I had to get outside.  I had to do my best in class. I had to accept interference as a part of daily schedules. I had to choose joy. 

As my friend Philip said...."EVERYTHING is dependent on weather or not we care........ CHOOSE to care, CHOOSE to want, CHOOSE to do the right thing." I was responsible for me....I had to choose to care....in order to live. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's words say it beautifully...."To live means to experience--through doing, feeling, thinking. Experience takes place in time, so time is the ultimate scarce resource we have. Over the years, the content of experience will determine the quality of life. Therefore one of the most essential decisions any of us can make is about how one's time is allocated or invested." 

I am realizing that it is soo true....we never know when we will have spent our time. Time is invaluable. I have a new niece who was born January 4th of this year. She is sooo beautiful. There was a little girl at our church who died of SIDS this past week. She was born the same day as my niece....she only had 7 weeks of time. It is virtually impossible to hold my niece, watch her sleep....stroke her cheek to see her smile....and even imagine not having an abundance of time with her. But the reality is, we never know. We hear it all the time...."there is no guarantee of tomorrow" ....sometimes we see it is true. The choices we make determine the quality of our life today.

We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us -- how we can take it, what we do with it -- and that is what really counts in the end. How to take the raw stuff of life and make it a thing of worth and beauty -- that is the test of living....Joseph Fort Newton. 

I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable ... but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing....
Agatha Christie :-)

Again, thank you for visiting. And thank you for sharing. :-)  

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