When I was twelve, I watched my uncle run a marathon. Audacity.
When I was twenty-two, I watched my mom quit her job as a bank executive, step into the void, and find a more meaningful career. Moxie.
When I was twenty-three, I watched my grandfather see the doors of the restaurant he’d managed for forty years close, then months later, at nearly seventy years old, live with more vitality than I’d ever witnessed while starting a new part-time job selling roses at a lawn and garden store. Hope.
As I followed these footsteps, unconsciously, none of my family members turned around and implored me to take notes. But their bravery planted seeds of potential within my heart, and subsequently, I took copious notes.
They had done what needed to be done, for them. And that was all I needed to see… then.
Yet, family archetypes can only serve for so long before they need inside replacement. Because when the going gets tough, you need to know who you are, and that understanding doesn’t come from stories; it’s earned by our choices, especially the big ones.
Every moment matters because moments make up days. And one of those days, a big choice inevitably lands in our lap. How we proceed, which values we pursue, and to what degree we honor what we know will ultimately define how we view ourselves for the following days to years.
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The big days are like games in a football season. There’s only a dozen of them, but across a year of preparation, they are informed by hundreds of practices. No one remembers practice though; we only remember the games.
If I told you the wins and losses don’t matter, I’d discredit myself. Of course they matter. But something else matters more: how we play the game.
I’ve thought a lot about why those particular choices by my family members were impactful. They’re not the only actions by my family that mattered, obviously, but when I sat down to write this essay, those three memories appeared first. Their meaning—to who I was then and who I am now—lives inside the transformation I witnessed. Knowing who they were before, understanding the risks they took, and then watching a clearer, stronger, and wholer person emerge on the other side was pivotal for my development. I needed those choices just as much as they did.
Across my life so far, I’ve probably played in four or five of those big decision games. In each, I have staked my soul to varying degrees. In each, I have learned something about myself. In each, I have told myself a story about who I am based on those choices. With hindsight, I can see how every little thought and memory influenced my choices. And interestingly, I can see that there was always a singular, right choice that I knew deep within my heart. Always. Not that I always made that choice.
But when the next big one appears, perhaps I’ll be aware of its magnitude. Or maybe I won’t. Still, my hope is that I’ll have a collection of owned choices at my back—inspired by the choices of my family and friends—ready to steer my intuition toward a growing sense of who I am.
Because I might not be the only one who needs it.
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