One thing I wish I knew when I was younger? Every choice comes with consequences, and though you can't always see what the consequences will be, like it or not, they will exist.
And you will have to deal with them.
- Choose to think miserable thoughts? Consequence: unhappiness.
- Choose to stay up all night and party? Consequence: the next morning.
- Choose to immigrate? Consequence: excitement, fun...and your life will change dramatically.
As podcaster Brooke Castillo says, it's the lesson of the stick.
It's a hard lesson to absorb. We get so enticed by one end of the stick that sometimes we don't bother thinking it through.
Now that I'm a mother, I'm trying to teach this lesson to my sons. I hope they're learning, but their lives are their lives, and each of us walks our own path.
Action. Consequence.
Two ends of the same stick.
In some ways, the cause and effect makes me think of Hamlet. Remember the lines from this soliloquy? "To thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man."
Catherine x
P.S. Read more about being strong or check out some pretty Sydney pictures I've taken lately.
And on a much sadder note, I'd love to recognise the courage of this amazing young man, a Form VI (Year Twelve) student from my son's school, who passed away this week. This is his incredible legacy.