How often do you think about your childhood? I rarely think about mine. In fact, I usually have to be prompted by someone to think about it, otherwise I spend my time thinking about other things regarding my present and future. From time to time, I think about high school, but only in relation to my overall personal growth. I do not organically think about myself before my teenage years.

My boss has a little girl who I have met a few times. I always want to thank her for reminding me of what it’s like to be a kid. How the best thing in the world can be a hug from a parent. All that you have on your side is time, but you don’t understand the concept of time because everything is now. You didn’t care who was watching you, because you were determined to play dress up no matter how ridiculous your outfit looked or how silly you were being.

Each year I step further away from teenage years. However, working with the teens that I have worked with this past year has served as a reminder of the blessing and love I had growing up. I am also reminded of the struggle one goes through as they transition between childhood to adulthood. In finding the words to help the teens understand I have been stepping deeper into my past to remember what I once felt but have forgotten.

As I was driving home today, I was thinking about the next speech that I will give to the girls this weekend for Awaken Arts. I’ve been thinking about this speech a lot and the wisdom I want to share is coming to me organically.

• The first week I was with the girls I urged them to let go of their past so that they can move forward without the baggage from the past holding them down.
• The second week, I told the girls that while they are fighting with the images of their old self, it is important to let their true self shine because they will be a beacon for the people who are right for them.

This coming week the theme is the future. While driving, to my surprise I started to think about the choose your own adventure books. When I was a kid I loved those books. I liked that I had a say in what direction a story or character could go within a story. I remember how I read always read all the possible adventures the character could go on because it was exciting to me.

Life is a choose your own adventure, but rarely do people see life as an adventure. And rarely do people choose their adventure.

People often worry and fear the future because they aren’t sure what is going to happen. To reduce anxiety people make plans and hold on tightly to those plans because of the false thought that they have their life under control. Life isn’t meant to be controlled, but often times we like to think that it can be controlled or do what we can do to control it.

• If we could control life then we would date and marry the people who are right for us instead of settle.
• If we could control life, then we wouldn’t have been fired or lost a job that we had.
• If we could control life then the people who are around us, would be the best people for us.

Life is filled with many parts and all those parts are alive and constantly shifting. There is too much in life to control, so why are we trying to control it?

Life isn’t meant to be controlled, it’s meant to be experienced.

Part of the journey of life is to take things as they come. The curve balls that come our way is life’s way of auto-correcting our path.

On the flip side, we often don’t choose our own adventure in life because many of us are not aware of what we are capable of achieving. If someone tells us we are dumb, stupid or can’t do something, we agree. We allow what others tell us to effect the life we live from the school we go to, the jobs we apply for, the career risks that we take or don’t take, the friends we have and who we marry. From birth to our present we are told by our culture how to be, how to live and how we should define success. At what point in our life are we really making choices? How often are we challenging the life we live? How many of us are living the life we wanted?

You can counter this point and throw back at me “The curve balls that come our way is life’s way of auto-correcting our path.” To that I would say, when you are on the right path there is less auto-correcting and more signs that you are doing what you are meant to do.

We are all capable of greatness. Yet, many times we fail to see it. We are all the authors of our own stories. Yet, many times we fail to own that truth.

What type of story are you writing? Aren’t you and your life worth more then settling?

Life is a choose your own adventure. Will you choose your adventure?  Or will you allow someone else to choose it for you?