Thou shall refuse to believe you have no options

“When quitting is no longer an option, you are half-way there.”

-Anonymous

After dropping off my daughter for the warm up of her basketball game, I had an hour to kill before actual game time. I figured a quick trip to Wal-Mart was in order to pick up the binder and folder she had been asking me to buy for about a week but I kept forgetting on every one of my many errand runs. At check out, I find myself face to face with the cashier. As is my usual protocol, I said hello and asked how he was doing, only to be greeted by complete silence. I didn’t even get a glance up as he roughly threw my school supplies in a plastic bag and announced my $7.88 bill. As I handed him my ten and waited for my change, I hear his co-worker ask him if he was due for his break. Again, without looking up, he rudely announced in a gruff tone that he was “overdue.” I looked over at the other cashier, who exchanged my glance and then shrugged her shoulders, as if to say “don’t worry, he’s always like that.”

I got my change, waited for a moment for a “thank you” or perhaps a “come back and see us again” to which I have become accustomed to (perhaps by my many years of living in the South).  It never came. I gathered up my bag and headed to my car, all the while thinking to myself, “Why would anyone choose to live their life in such a miserable mood?” It has to be excruciating to be such a downer to not only everyone around you, but most importantly, to you, yourself. 

Just then, my cell phone rang and on the other end of the line was one of my good friends, “Jamie.” After listening to Jamie explain our plans for the afternoon with our girls, I relayed my encounter with the rude (and truly pitiful) cashier and I asked Jamie why she thought anyone would choose to live their life in that state...just so mad at the world...so determined to not only be miserable, but make everyone else around him miserable as well. 

Jamie’s answer surprised me, “Maybe he doesn’t have options.” 

“Options?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

Jamie went on to explain that she, a social worker, encounters these types of people every day and I have to agree, I have been seeing more than my fair share as well. “The economy is in the gutter, and he probably doesn’t want to be a cashier but has no options...he has to pay the bills,” Jamie said.

Now,  you have to understand. I am incredibly sympathetic with people who have been hit hard by this economy. I know times have gotten very tough for too many people and I am very hopeful that things will turn around soon. But I still don’t understand the concept of a “doom and gloom” attitude while you sit back believing you have “no options.”

Everyone has options. Let me repeat that. Everyone has options. 

I had an option when I was in high school to do well enough to be able to go to college. I had the option to come home from high school, sit on the couch and eat chips (or worse yet, do drugs) or I could go to the tennis court and work on my game. I chose the option of the latter, and that choice earned me an athletic scholarship. I could have partied my way through my entire college career but I wanted to give myself options, so I worked hard at my grades and earned a right to go to law school. I worked while in law school, waiting tables and also in the athletic department, so that I could pay for my education. Those things don’t happen by accident though. Each and every step I have made (and every misstep as well) has come because of a choice I have made. Those choices, my friends, are options, and we all have them.

Take my friend, Robin. Single mother of 3 children, divorced. Robin had been working as a secretary in a small law office, barely making ends meet for her family. She decided to enroll in a paralegal program three nights a week. In a year, she had earned her paralegal certificate and a good little bump in her salary. Just a short 6 months later, she enrolled in law school (in the evenings) and while it took her 6 years to earn her J.D., she is now a fantastic lawyer in a very prestigious law firm in Memphis, TN. Were all those extra hours easy on Robin? Heck, no. Were they worth it? Absolutely.

There is also my friend, Adam, who lost his wife in a car accident a little more than two years ago. Adam now raises his boys on his own and is not only one of the best dads I know, he has one of the sunniest dispositions of anyone I have ever met. I remember asking him one day how he maintained such a positive attitude despite being dealt a hand many would crumble under. His answer was simple. “It was a choice,” he said. “I had the option to pull the covers over my head and be depressed for the rest of my life...or I could decide to be happy again...for me and for my boys.” 

Adam and Robin created options for themselves. We all can too. The key, I believe, is never to start believing you are out of options. Options exist everywhere but so does the urge to “give up” when things start to get tough. But it’s when things get tough that you truly get to determine what kind of character you have. So, when faced with adversity will you dwell in the negative or will you work to create better options for yourself? It’s a choice...and the choice is yours..