Think It Through

"If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else." 

-Lawrence J Peter

Impulsive, if I had to describe myself in one word a year ago this is the one I would choose. I didn't think about my choices, where they were leading me or the consequences they may bring. I just went with it and then when I found myself in a bad situation I always asked myself how I got there, usually I could look back and pin it to a single judgement lapse that spiraled out of control. The truth is our generation as a whole doesn't like to think. We make decisions based on emotion and feelings rather than exercising self control. We don't want to think about where things are going, we don't want to think about how waking up next to a stranger is going to feel and we definitely don't want to think about what our choices really mean. Most of us are emotional procrastinators constantly hearing, "you think too much" or "it's not a big deal I'm just having fun". Over the past several months something I have learned is that stopping to think about what I am doing and where it may lead has been one of the most valuable lessons I have ever learned. Before we alter our choices to match where we want to go we have to first know where that is. One of the first questions my mentor ever asked me was "what do you want?" I had no idea, I didn't know where I wanted to be or what I wanted my life to look like in even a year. I could think of a few things that I didn't want though and that's where I started. If you find yourself wandering and can't seem to figure out where it is you're going I encourage you to sit down and really think about what you want. You may not know at first and that's ok what's important is that you are thinking about it. I can't tell you how important it is that you have a goal and you know where you're going. Once you understand that, every decision you make can be lined up against it. When you're faced with a decision that seems trivial at the time take yourself on a journey of where that road may lead you. If I choose to put myself in this situation where is it going to go? And does that line up with the direction I want? If it doesn't then go the other way. It is so much easier to change courses in the beginning than it is when you're already half way down the road.

People always say hindsight is 20/20, which is true, but I believe looking ahead can keep us from making choices we have to learn lessons from. This doesn't mean that your goal will always be the same. As you grow and let God reveal where He wants to take you there is a very good chance that what you want will change and thats ok... that's good. When you have direction you can look at situations, people, relationships and say that's not what I want and so as painful as it may be I'm going the other way. Maybe there are things that may not always be a no go for you but for right now it's not an option. I did this with alcohol for awhile. I could say alcohol isn't bad and in the future I may have a drink again but for now drinking puts me on this road and that's not where I want to be. That meant even changing my lifestyle so that it didn't put me in a place where that was an option. For example: if I go out tonight there is going to be alcohol, people are going to ask me to drink, drinking does not put me in the place I want to be in right now therefore I'm not going out. It sucked at the time, it wasn't fun and honestly there were times when all I wanted to do was have a drink but I wanted healing more. Had I not known that I wanted healing it wouldn't have given me anything to look to. Giving myself a goal something to work towards gave me the strength to say no to things that kept me from that.

This is a journey and just because you screw up and take a detour doesn't mean you failed. In fact this last weekend I made some choices that left me thinking "ok that probably wasn't the best idea". I saw directly how a bad choice led me to somewhere I didn't want to be. So I got off that road, you're allowed to make mistakes the important thing is what you do after them. Do you realize that what you're doing isn't taking you where you want to go and turn around or do you choose to blind yourself and keep walking? Be a thinker your life is too important to live on a road with no destination.