An Apple A Day: How Micro Decisions Can Make or Break You

If you know what you want and know what to do to get there, you are fortunate.

For most people it is a case of try, try again, try something else, take a few steps sideways and maybe one or two back before they feel they are on something like the right track.
But I’ve come to the conclusion – that’s OK

When I get into my car I can’t plug a destination into the GPS and wait for it to take me there (well not yet at any rate), no I have to drive the car using the years of knowledge and practice, understanding that things will get in my way, I may have to make detours and I may be stuck in many traffic snarls before I reach my destination – AND THAT IS ONE JOURNEY!

So we look at this thing called life and ask, why isn’t it working for me? Why isn’t it just simple, why do I have to work so hard?

Now there are many reasons why and we will get into those, but for now, just accept that some things just are. What you find easy to do I may hate and not want to do, or I may just not be any good at it.

I can knit, I cannot as yet crochet very well. And I may not be able to crochet as well as I used to knit, and you know what that is just fine, and the reason that is – is because I am not yet willing to work hard at it. Learning the stitches, learning how to hold the hook, it’s still a little weird for me, much like eating with chopsticks is. Give me a fork and or spoon to eat rice with any day. But if you’ve been brought up using chopsticks, you may well find it weird to use a fork. I don’t know, I don’t have your background and experience, and you don’t have mine.
And that is one of the keys to life’s great puzzles.

 

We cannot look at someone else's life and say – why isn’t my life like that?

 

Why can’t I do that?

 

History and Experiences

 

Look at it like this, even member of the same family don’t have the same history and experiences. We take different classes at school, we hang out with different people, we eat different foods, watch different programs, read different stuff. I know me and my siblings are on very different paths. 

And that is just one tiny aspect of our separate lives.
If you’ve read my Linked In bio you will know a little more about me, my elder sister is an end of life carer the youngest brother is a mechanic, my other brother as some of you know took his own life more than 3 decades ago, so who knows where he would have ended up, and what he would have done.

Same family, different paths, different experiences and very different outcomes.

 

So – we began this piece on where to from here?

 

And the answer is – it’s up to you.

 

There are some things to consider, your journey will be very different (but similar) from everyone else you know:

• You will go to school
• You will learn a bunch of stuff
• You may go onto college or university and learn a whole lot more stuff
• You may go into the working environment where you will learn stuff and you will apply that knowledge and learning to allow the company you work for to do their stuff
• You will go on holiday
• You will eat, drink, play games, read books, watch television, go to concerts or movies, have family gatherings, get married, have a family, or not.
• Some of you will make sport your job, and some of you will enjoy playing sport to keep fit and healthy while others will enjoy watching it.
• You might have minor ailments or you may have a battle with something more deadly, or you will know someone who does.
• And then at some point or other, we pass on to the next phase.

But inside each of those chapters, those major decisions are millions upon millions of micro decisions that we have made which go to make up who we are at this actual moment in time.

 

Do I go for a walk or do I carry on writing? Do I write well or is it ho hum, no passion, just words on paper.

 

A friend once told me I have begun to write with the same passion about my yoga exploits as I did when I took pole dancing lessons.

 

And I had to look back at the photographs, that was a long time ago in a galaxy bar, far far away before the addition of 15 kilos and a decade of stress has turned me into someone who can no longer bend over and touch her nose to her knees, or balance on one leg while standing still with her arms in the air.

It’s not that I am unfit, I do a thrice weekly 5+ km walk regardless of the weather, and it’s a walk not a stroll, and I do plenty of those reaching for those illusive 10,000 steps the health people say is the ultimate in exercise to lazy ratio. I also try and fit in 3 weight training sessions a week but it wasn’t enough, so I added yoga to the mix after Mike repeatedly sent me the Groupon voucher for a 12 week session for $39. It’s close to his place so you’d think it would be easy to fit in. But in reality I can only do a single session a week because I work a good 25km away and get half an hour for lunch. 

An Apple A Day

 

Jim Rohn once said, what if it were as simple as an apple a day keeps the doctor away – wouldn’t we do it. Why don’t we do it? Because it’s easy to do it’s also easy not to do. We  don’t eat an apple today and tonight we’re not sick... so tomorrow when we are faced with the decision whether to eat the apple or go for the chocolate which will we take?

Interesting philosophy isn’t it.

 

How long does it take to eat your average apple? Answer – not very long. We can even multi-task while we do it. Same with the chocolate

 

Micro decisions - they can make or break us.