You often hear stories of people that are truly embittered, right? They’re just angry individuals, and they’ve been thrust into some, perhaps, economic loss, or a relationship has broken down, and it just goes on. And they’re blaming someone else.
They’re blaming the ex-girlfriend or boyfriend, or they’re blaming a business partner, if it’s been a bad financial relationship, whatever it is, blaming and blaming. But they’ve made certain decisions along the way, haven’t they?
And in the end, every decision I’ve ever made in my life, I have to take responsibility for, 100%. And this, of course, is a little bit painful, because when we’re younger, we don’t have a lot of joys, we feel.
Our parents kind of ramrod us, if you will, press gang us into certain things, maybe into our studies, want to learn the piano, which was in my case, I was forced to learn the piano, and I always blamed my mother for this.
But then when I was 20 years old or 16 years old, I took up playing the piano, and I played in a rock and roll band for a period of time, and it was great fun.
So even though it was her decision initially, I had adopted that decision, and it worked out well for me. So I think this is a good concept. Wherever I go, whatever I do in my life, it is my responsibility.
I must accept my own decisions along the way.
When I was 19 years old, I lived in this small little village. It was my gap year, and I worked a year after high school in this television and stereo store, selling.
And our area at the time was awash with money from mostly the forestry and fishing as well, but mostly forestry. And there was a lot of money being spent on electronic goods, of course, especially a good sound system.
This was really a point of status for individuals to have a good sound system, and they would come in our shop and I would sell them, and I was good at it. And the man who owned it, he said to me, Leon, hmm, I can see you’re good at this.
Why don’t you spend five years here and I’ll make you a partner? I said, what do you mean? He said, well, I will give you, I think it was 20 or 25% of this business legally if you stay these five years.
And of course, he’s thinking 75% in his case of something huge is a lot bigger than 100% of something small. So he was promoting this idea. And I really contemplated this.
Gosh, I would have been 22 or 23 years old, and I’d have been a wealthy young man in this limited village, of course. And I certainly, I would have had a girlfriend and a car and a house and all sorts of societal things at a very early age.
Certainly my peers would have struggled to have acquired the same. And so I didn’t know what to do. And then at the last moment, I fortunately had an argument with my girlfriend and I made the decision.
I refused his offer and I went off to Hungary and then subsequently to Europe. I went to school in Europe. Now, that decision has impacted my life because I’m sitting here some 50 years later now with the results of that particular decision.
And gosh, I’m happy for it because certainly materially, there is no way I’ve ever been able to actually achieve that level of financial success.
But I’ve surpassed my imagination in psychological and emotional success, doing what I wanted to do, which was learning languages and studying, et cetera, et cetera.
So that one small decision changed my life. So I think whatever you do, think to yourself, I’m responsible for my decisions.
And when the decision goes sideways, which a lot of decisions are bad decisions, I must also be responsible, feel responsible for that. And that kind of decision which produces an extremely negative result cannot produce a regret.
Oh, I’m so sad I did this. No way. You have to say to yourself, this has been a lesson.
Whatever that lesson was, whatever that lesson was, this is a lesson and I will not repeat this mistake again. For sure. Not repeated.
But I still have to realize that the decision I made was what actually occurred. Small story, another one. One time many years ago, I was to get on an airplane and a friend of mine said, come on Leon, let’s go, let’s go.
And for whatever reason, I delayed and I delayed and then he kind of left.
There used to be a lot of coastal airplanes around where I lived on the west coast of Vancouver Island and you could take a short ride for 10 minutes and that would take you probably four or five hours by car, but a very short distance by airplane.
So this was one of those times. Going to take this short flight, I think it was eight minutes, right, to fly to Vancouver Island. And then I would borrow his car and go and see my parents, try to build a relationship with my father.
And then I just come back the next morning. And this one particular time, as I said, I sat back down and eventually he got angry with me and he went. And the next morning, my mother phoned me rather early.
Are you fine? I said, of course I’m fine. What’s up?
And the poor plane had crashed. And it had all been killed. And I should have been on that airplane.
And I said to myself, is this just fate, or is this luck, or is this imagination on my part? But it actually happened to me. Stories that you hear about, with the hand forcing you down God’s hand, if you will, your angel’s hand, happened to me.
And I’ve talked to many and numerous other people, similar circumstances, and it saved their career, their marriage, their life, whatever it was, right? All these things have occurred in life when it comes to decision.
So I guess the question comes, when I come to a decision, a major decision, what should I do? Well, I think I should stop and not act impetuously. I should stop and reflect.
Mark Twain has said, get a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle, and you got to make a decision? Okay, what are the positives and what are the negatives? And then you will be able to see in front of you and you will be able to evaluate.
If I go left, these are the consequences, right? You know, so it’s very clear in that sense. So we don’t have to be foolish about making decisions in that sense, especially the major ones.
But once again, once you’re fully engaged, you are responsible for it. And as I alluded to a little bit earlier, I think that we have to stop being victims.
I mean, there are 1.5 million semi-homeless and half a million permanently homeless people in North America. And this has got to be a scandal, because these societies, these countries are wealthy, for sure, wealthy beyond imagination.
But they’re capitalistic economies, so they are harsh and hard, and you have to put in your time. You have to work hard, you have to do something. You can’t be a victim of circumstance in your life.
Absolutely not. And once you are responsible and you’re not a victim, you feel free, because it is my life, and my life is 100% my doing, my fault, in other words. And you know what they say, you know what they say.
Critical thinking is everything, especially when you’re going to be responsible for your decisions, and critical thinking is great, truly great. You take care. God bless. Bye-bye.