Today I was thinking about the power of choice. More specifically, about the phrase ‘I have to do this’.

We spend our days doing things we ‘have’ to do. Going to work, taking care of the family, cleaning the kitchen. Driving, cleaning, paying taxes, texting people we know, feeding the dog.

We have to do this, which means we can’t do this thing that we want to do. We have to.

The word ‘have’ completely changes the sentence. Think about the difference between ‘I have to’ and ‘I want to’. It’s a completely different sentence. Different meaning, different energy, different way of approaching the situation.

Imagine if we said ‘I want to’ instead of ‘I have to’. How much would that change how we live our lives?

But no, we have to do this, we have to do that. We don’t want to, we wish we didn’t have to, but we have to. We feel stuck in our routine, stuck in our life, stuck in these things we didn’t choose to have to do.

But that’s where we are wrong.

Everything is a choice.

Before you throw your arms up and close the tab, roll with me for a minute.

Have you ever asked someone, ‘Well, why don’t you have the time? Can’t you just skip… for today’? Usually, you get an answer somewhere along the lines of ‘I can’t skip it, I have to do it. I don’t have a choice.’

We’ve all said it at some point in our lives. But is it really true?

What would happen if you didn’t pay your taxes, or clean your kitchen, or take care of your family? What would happen if you didn’t go to work?

Your mind just filled with all of the horrible consequences of not doing something. So, knowing all the bad things that will happen if you don’t pay your taxes, clean your kitchen, or take care of your family, you decide to go ahead and do those things, even if you don’t really want to.

Do you see where I am going with this?

Everything is a choice. No one is forcing you to pay your taxes (no, not even the IRS. All they are doing is adding more consequences to the list of things that will happen if you don’t pay them).

No one is forcing you to clean your kitchen (although that pile of dirty dishes is a pretty gross consequence if you don’t), and no one is forcing you to take care of your family (but their unhappiness if you don’t is, again, another item on the list of possible consequences).

Everything is a choice. Knowing what the possible consequences of not doing something will be, you choose to do it. It may not be your favorite choice, and you may not like it, but it is a choice nonetheless.

You choose to do the thing, because the consequences of not doing the thing far outweigh your unhappiness when you actually do the thing. You go to work, because you know if you don’t go, you will get fired, lose your money, and life will be harder than it is now. So you choose to go.

You could just as easily choose not to do the thing.

But all those things that you ‘have’ to do are all really just choices you make, because you know what will happen if you make the opposite choice.

So what would your life be like, if you began to say ‘I want to do this’? Maybe that is too much of a stretch, especially when the things we are faced with seem so unappealing. But what if you take the ‘have tos’ and turn them into choices? Acknowledge that you allowed this moment to come. You created your schedule, chose your commitments, and made a choice.

You may not want to pay your taxes, you may not want to clean the kitchen, go to work, or feed the kids. But you choose to. You choose to, knowing what will happen if you don’t.

So reframe the thought. Not every choice you make has to make you beautifully happy. You don’t even have to like every choice you make. But imagine a life in which you acknowledged that everything is a choice.

Wouldn’t it be a beautiful life, when you are no longer forced to do anything?

That power, that capacity, and that opportunity, starts with you. Here and now, in your own mind. Before you find yourself complaining about the ‘have tos’, reframe them into ‘want tos’. Even if you don’t feel like you want to.

Just watch. What will happen, when you no longer have to do anything, and everything is a choice?

Enjoy the journey, beautiful friend.