Owning our choices and their consequences

Some people seem to live their lives by the seat of their pants.  They don't appear to plan much ahead, and don't seem to see value in planning ahead because life just "happens" to them.  Sometimes it looks like, to them, that any plans they make don't work out anyway, so why bother?

It can be easier to see from the outside where previous choices they've made have contributed to the situations that make their plans fail.  This sort of thing is harder to see when you're in the middle of it, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to figure out what choices have led to which results, and strive for improvements down the line.

Of course there are always situations where all the options available are terrible, and you have to choose the least awful one, but those are more rare than most people realize.  What I usually observe is people being faced by a choice between something they want to do and something they know they should be doing that isn't necessarily a terrible thing.  Instead of really looking at the pros and cons of a particular option, and taking a longer view by saying something like "if I do this thing I should do, what will be my pay off later?" or "If I do the thing I want to do instead of this other thing I should do, how will I pay for it later?"  If you really apply yourself, it's usually possible to come up with various scenarios that may or may not happen as a result, and you can make a better informed choice based on the outcome you really want to see happen further down the line.

Life is not as unpredictable as it seems, and it is possible to build in enough buffer or padding in your situation to handle even the unusual situations that crop up.  It's important to see that you're in this life for the long haul.  To learn where you're planting seeds for the future, and possibly the quite distant future, and to realize that even if you don't see the fruit today, the fruit you get eventually will be better.

I see this play out in financial areas a lot.  People seem to feel that because they're poor, or they're having a difficult time money-wise, that means all planning for the future goes out the window.  It's actually the worst time for financial planning to be ignored.  I'm not saying any of this is easy, nor is it intuitive.  Most people don't learn the fundamentals of money management, and they don't examine their purchases, they don't think about their budgets, and they live from paycheck to paycheck.  I know that there are certainly times when it seems like you just can't get ahead of all the crap life throws at you (like a series of expensive car failures when you absolutely need your car to get around for your job).

I'm not here to offer financial advice, but the point of this post is to encourage people to really take the long view of their situations.  To look at what they've done in the past, and where it led them, and own that they made choices that brought them where they were.  Acknowledge it and learn from it.  Don't repeat past mistakes, and instead try to find a new way to accomplish your goals.  The internet is full of people's stories for how they accomplished things, try to learn from them.

One of the best lessons you can learn in life is that you need to live your life, proactively.  Don't be an observer of your life, sitting passively while things happen around you and blow you thither and yon.  Stand up and act on your own behalf.  Put in the energy to learn how to avoid past mistakes, learn how to do better next time, learn how to plant seeds for success down the road, even if you can't see it for years. 

You can't learn from your mistakes or the choices you've made until you fully accept the idea that your mistakes and choices actually have an impact on where you end up.  Finally accepting this, and then putting it in action, is a powerful thing.  It puts you back in control of your life in important ways.

You don't have to start big.  Focus on one bit of your life that seems out of your control, or beyond your ability to plan for it.  Just start small.  Small successes lead to bigger ones, and give you greater confidence in your own abilities.