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KIDS OF CHARACTER 3/23/2009
The Choice Maker “You always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself.” W. Clement Stone, renowned twentieth-century businessman and inspirational writer, authored these words many years ago. They hit the Bulls Eye for anyone who seeks to define a life in the only way that creatively reveals the human spirit’s capacity to begin again. To be the choice maker with your thoughts activates the primary tool that will set you on a path of self-leadership and personal integrity. Whether we’re seven or seventy, the most significant daily gift we can give ourselves is to know we can choose…again. As a choice maker we cease to sit and wait for others to treat us better or be more caring, honest, fair, and respectful. When we make a rock-solid commitment to be the choice maker, our commitment shapes our rules of engagement. We define our personal power to be the one who chooses to demonstrate trustworthiness, civility, patience, and every other virtue by which our family, friends, and co-workers come to know us. “I can’t help it; It is not my fault; If only she had told me; He should not have done that to me.” These phrases are both symbolic and literal. They are words that define individuals of any age who will not, cannot, or are too afraid to take on the choice maker’s initiative. No one ever told me it took courage to be a daily choice maker. But it does. It takes steady practice to build such choice making courage. It is so much easier to blame another or offer a slippery excuse for one’s actions than to call forth the self accountability etched in the words of W. Clement Stone, “…Only you have the power to choose for yourself.” A special child gift from a character mentor is the lesson of the choice maker, teaching kids the invaluable lesson that every individual stands in the center of their thoughts, feelings and actions.
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