Choices / Abercrombie and Fitch skits

Last year I lived with my sister and her family for a few months. My oldest nephew was in 1st grade. Almost every day he took his lunch, and a little bit of pocket change for something at the cafeteria. I watched him put the money carefully in his red coin purse, which then went into his backpack. When he got home his mom would ask "what choices did you make today?"

They'd have a conversation about what he picked, and how he felt about it. I loved listening to his answers. "I had a chocolate bar ... I don't think it was the best choice, but I really enjoyed it."

There are a lot of difficult lessons in life, but I think the hardest is learning how to make your own decisions and, furthermore, making peace with them and enjoying them! To think of how many chocolate bars I didn't enjoy because I was judging myself for eating them is super sad.

Someone once said to me: "sometimes there is no right or wrong, there is simply a choice." That was a revelation, because, frankly, for most of my life, I was tortured by the fact that I could have somehow prevented all the heartache and hurt and pain that I came across - mine and everyone elses- if I simply made the "right" choice. I think I subconciously felt responsible for everything/anything that went wrong.

There are lots of reasons that I was like that (oldest child syndrome, perhaps?), but now when I look at all my choices, I know that I tried the best I could. My life decisions have all helped me learn and have compassion for myself and others.

So, that was more serious than I had anticipated. To lighten the mood a little - here are some skits about the Abercrombie and Fitch stores. I laughed at these a lot this week: