The Life-Changing Power of Choosing Everything

12 days in Japan taught me to live life with intentionality.

What struck me was the care, the hospitality, the sense of intentionality behind everything. I was experiencing ‘omotenashi’ — the Japanese art of thoughtful hospitality — and I loved it. It’s everywhere in Japan — in the hot towel before the meal, in the rules against eating or talking on your phone in the subway, and even in the redesign of the standard toilet.

My brief trip to Japan inspired me to approach my life with the same thoughtful ‘omotenashi’ that others showed me. Instead of speeding through life with a reactionary posture and taking things for granted, I’ve become motivated to slow down and intentionally welcome what comes with thoughtful hospitality.

What to Do With Things You Can’t Change

Much suffering comes from both fighting against and running from things that are actually out of our control. Our primary struggle is not against what happens outside, but what happens inside. And the greatest weapon we have in this inner struggle against things out of our control is our will to choose.

For our primary struggle is not against what happens outside, but what happens inside.

For example, we cannot choose when it rains, but we can choose to welcome the rain. We cannot choose whether we’ll get COVID-19, but we can choose to receive it as a meaningful experience. We may not be able to choose a new house, but we can choose to reimagine the space we already have.

And difficult circumstances are not the only things transformed by choice. Over time, good things can lose their luster as we treat them with indifference. But by the power of choice, we can re-choose what we already have instead of buying something new. Likewise, we can dramatically renew a relationship by choosing it again, as if for the first time. By choosing what we have, we can truly have it all.

By choosing what we have, we can truly have it all.

This Is How We Stop Being Victims of Life

We have the power to curate a meaningful life out of the raw events that unfold around us — whether they be good or bad. By our choices, we can turn chaos into order and transform things meant for evil into opportunities for good.

If you want to change something, choose it. If you want to truly enjoy something, welcome it with ‘omotenashi’. You can’t control much of what life gives you, but you can change your life by choosing whatever comes your way instead of fighting or ignoring it.

This does not mean we pull the wool over our own eyes and try to convince ourselves that what is definitely difficult is actually not. Terrible things happen, and suffering is real. But, as Seneca writes, “It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it.”

This is about our reaction to things out of our control. It’s a way of facing life head-on. When things we can’t change come our way, we welcome them; we choose them. In this way, we transform them from something happening to us, to something that we’re now choosing to go through. This is we stop being victims of life.

We may wish to have different circumstances (I still do), but once we accept that our world is imperfect and so are our lives, we can start to see choosing our (seemingly) unchangeable circumstances as the most powerful way to, in fact, change them.

“It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it.”

-Seneca

We have the power to choose everything that can be chosen. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not great at this. In fact, I find it mind-blowingly difficult. But, I am finding that the more I slow down, the easier it is to be intentional; and the more intentional I am, the easier it is to slow down.

Put This Into Practice

Choice is a life-changing power. We can transform things simply by receiving them with willful intention. In this way of living, negative circumstances can become positive events, and old things can, once again, become new things.

The life-changing power of choosing everything is very simple to practice. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Think of your most important relationship. Now choose that person again, as if for the first time.
• When you sit down to eat your next meal, stop. With intentionality, look at each spoonful before you eat it. Chew slowly.
• As you ask a friend a question, make eye contact, listen carefully, and try to notice something about them you haven’t noticed before.
• Next time something less-than-stellar happens, don’t run from it, receive it.

Slow down, take a deep breath, and look at anything in your life. Now intentionally choose that thing and feel your experience transform.

Find this helpful? You might like my most-read article, To Stop Suffering, Adopt an Infinite Mindset.