It struck me this morning that this is an interesting week for me to be focusing on setting intentions/goals/priorities for 2017 because tomorrow, in the U.S. where I live, Donald Trump is being inaugurated as president and my favorite president and first lady ever are leaving the White House. It would be an easy time for me to focus on lost possibilities rather than hope for the future.
If you like Trump and are celebrating while I am grieving, or if you really don't care one way or the other, please don't leave me yet!
I actually do want to keep building bridges across these big divides of understanding in our nation (and world) and you are more than welcome here.
And this post isn't primarily about politics anyway. It's about choices.
Specifically, it's about the choices we always have the power to make, regardless of circumstances.
No, we don't have ALL the choices we want. And I ABSOLUTELY believe that some people's choices are severely limited because of race, appearance, religion, gender, poverty and a whole lot of other injustices and inequities that I hope you and I will keep working to change.
But, still, we always have choices.
One of the things we can always choose is where we focus our attention and what stories we tell about ourselves and our circumstances, regardless of how limited our external choices are.
When something is happening that is beyond our control and not what we wanted, something that is deeply painful and even frightening—which, for me, at the moment is tomorrow's inauguration, but for you may be the cancer that's spread, or your child's struggle with bullies at school, or a big break up with your boyfriend, or a blizzard that's buried your car and screwed with your vacation plans—whatever that something is, you can still choose your focus.
And setting intentions/goals/priorities (I know they aren't exactly the same, but I'm not sure it matters much; use what works for you) can be a nice way to do just that. And a great way to move closer to a life you love in 2017.