Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

Yeah, it's kinda like that.

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." -- Yoda

I got a text message from a good friend of mine yesterday afternoon. It essentially presented me with two choices she had to weigh against one-another. She was trying to pick between two guys, one who was fresh and new, and one who she knew loved her but was old and tired. My answer was almost instant, "Pick the option that moves your story forward."

She seemed to like that answer well enough, and thanked me, but I had to clarify what I meant because when I say this to somebody, I always feel like they don't really understand what I mean. It's not that I think my friends are stupid, I just don't think most people understand the way my brain works when it is trying to make decisions.


If you read [this blog post], I told you when I first adopted this as my methodology for life. What I didn't explain is that I first started thinking about this back in elementary school. Yes, I was thinking about the path my life would take back in elementary school. I've always been a creepily deep child. just ask my mother. After she finishes gushing about how smart I was, she'll agree. This idea of choosing the route that will move the story forward in the most entertaining and fulfilling way spawned from Choose Your Own Adventure books. My mom was big on reading when I was a kid, still is in fact, we routinely trade books and every time she has a book purge, I get the vast majority of them.

One of the series of books she first introduced me to were Goosebumps. You remember the goosebumps stories, everybody does if they're within five years of my age. Well, they also released a number of CYOA books. These were my favorite. When I would first get the book, I would use logic to try and reach the 'ideal ending' where my character lived and came out on top,. Gradually though, I started to look at the alternative paths. I realized there were dozens of stories I hadn't experienced. It was somewhat of an awakening for me. That was when I first made the decision to take the road less traveled whenever possible. I guess I could have credited Robert Frost, but to be honest, I didn't even learn about Frost until my seventh or eighth grade English courses.

Suddenly, letting logic fade away from my decision making, I found myself enjoying these stories that I had read a hundred times in a whole new way. It was a sensational new way to experience classics that I thought I had completely understood. It would be years before I decided that I would apply this mentality to my life.

It's funny. Since making this decision, I have had more adventures and experienced more happiness than I ever did prior. It's only been about six years, but those six years have been some of the best in my entire life. Even through the bad choices I've had, I have made these decisions because they gave me the most enjoyment and strongest sense of fulfillment. It's a rare, beautiful feeling to know that the choice you made is the one that moves your story forward in the best possible way. I still have to work on employing this all the time, instead of just when it suits me, but the idea of consequences still lingers. Sometimes, the thought of ending up on a never-ending roller coaster is a bit terrifying.