People stay in dead end jobs, loveless marriages never leaving the boundaries of their hometowns. Why is it so hard to let go of things that no longer work? The devil you know is better then the one you don’t know. People are willing to live a mediocre life for the safety it provides. But what if you were guaranteed a positive outcome how would you live your life differently? What kind of choices would you make knowing each one would turn out OK? If you can imagine this different life then envision another a life where you are still free to make choices but are unsure of the outcome. Except now you accept the consequences of your choices knowing they could be either bad or good. In this life you feel fear but take chances anyway. Every day we make a choice. Today’s choices may seem wrong but tomorrow is the opportunity for new ones. Choosing means letting go of the other possibility and what it could bring. ION’s president, James O’Dea in the September-November edition of Shift magazine says this about choice, “Each step has consequences that will secure the status quo, create a new roadmap, or possibly transform old ways in a manner that defies our rational understanding.”

Assumptions: We have assumptions about everything. We live and die by them. My friends and I have had heated conversations about the current political arena. Who hasn’t? We stand strong in our various viewpoints. What surprised me most was one friend. He did not know some really basic facts about the candidate he was opposed to. When asked, he said he didn’t care to know anything. Yet, he had made some profound judgments about this person with the slimmest of knowledge gleaned from only hearing just one point of view. Challenge your assumptions. We go through life and never reevaluate what we believe. The great spiritual leaders ask us to leave the life we are living behind and enter into a new one. Our modern leaders such as Gandhi or Mother Theresa did just that and devoted themselves to living a new and much more expansive existence. They were able to increase the circumference of what they previously knew to include the world and in doing so changed the lives of many, many people. Give up your old ways and take on new experiences. Reconsider your values and find out if they support you morally and soulfully...

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© Copyright Rev. Sandra Lee Schubert. This article was originally published at our website, SoulfulLiving.com, in Oct-Dec 2004, as part of our "Letting Go" Issue.

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