Thursday, January 16, 2014

Coulda - Woulda - Shoulda

I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody.
That's how I think about myself sometimes.
It's all about those damn decisions.



I thought about decisions this morning on my walk when I saw this tree.


It was cut and changed to make room for electrical lines. Those branches were never supposed to look like that, cut off and stumped. And I wondered what the coulda, woulda, shoulda's been different in my life if other decisions had been made. I guess I am just damn lucky I had any branches at all. I could have just been a wooden stump with no roots and no twigs with leaves growing outta my ass.


The same tree from another side shows it in more of it's beauty. Oh how I wish I was more like that side of the tree, made better decisions.

Decisions
Decisions
Decisions

They are a pain in the buttooski! Those damn things are mostly the reason I am where I am today. They have been nothing but a constant activity in my life. Over and Over and Over again! Oh I suppose there was karma and attitudes, destiny and circumstance, and maybe even free will and emotions caught up in there too. But there ain't no denying I am where I am today because of em and I have no doubt they will be with me to the grave.

They affected my kids lives too. Those have been painful to bring to memory. Just like my mother and father's decisions affected me and their parents them and so on and so on. The hope I have is that with each generation we make better decisions than those before us. At any moment in your life you can decide to make changes. It's a decision.

If you whisper it to yourself, “it's just a decision”.
It's just a decision...all kinds of things in your life can change.
You can get up and walk, go to the gym for a swim, not eat potato chips, read, do a little dance,
drive to the mountains just to hear your voice echo, (sometimes it's the little things that count).

It's just a decision. It won't make the earth move but it has power to make me move in another direction.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

That is one heck of a pretty tree. It's funny you noticed it. I doubt anyone would have ever taken note of that tree, much less taken a picture of it, if not for it's.... asymmetry.

I think we all have those thoughts, some more than others. I've never found them to benefit me.

Here's my thought: How can a person be expected to live without regrets? It seems impossible to go a single day without looking back and prefering to change something. But when I want to change that one thing, I then want to change another and another.

Which leads me to think, having no regrets doesn't mean not making mistakes. It means not looking at your mistakes regretfully.

The past is set. We are where we are. All I can do is make today better than yesterday. Make tomorrow's lunch tastier than today's. Laugh louder, smile brighter.

That tree has lived and seen some pain. Some might say it's lived because it's seen some pain.