How One Choice Can Change the Course of Your Life.

gmichelbkk (66)in #life • 7 years ago (edited)

Have you ever wondered how an important choice you made in the past made your life what it is now, and that your life could have been much different if you had made a different choice?

Without saying that one choice is better than the other, you will never know what life would have been making a different choice. It can be a choice of school or university to attend, a choice of career, a choice of partner in business and life, or a choice in a country to live in.

How One Choice Can Change the Course of Your Life.

Every day in life we make little choices that do not have a very big impact on our life as a whole like having cheese or desert at the end of a meal.

In the contrary when you decide to marry someone, this is something that can make your life take a specific direction for the best or the worst. Maybe you had to make a choice between one person or another, or a choice between getting married or staying single. What would have been your life making the other choice?

In my case, I didn't want to stay single as I like company and family life, and I didn't have to choose one person over another, I just let life happen. So I can't imagine how my life would have been making the other choice.

The most important choice I had to make in my life was to decide whether to expatriate myself to Canada or Thailand. One thing was sure, I didn't want to stay in France because I wanted more than being in the system with all its advantages, but also restrictions.

I made that choice when I was about 25 years old and had studied both options.

It was easy to immigrate to Canada as being French there was programs for young people to go work in Quebec as to keep the French language alive. I went to a couple of seminars and all was very clear about how to immigrate, find a job and the different help we could receive.

There was a lot of employment opportunities for me as a young movie/TV cameraman in Quebec, much more than in France, and I liked their lifestyle and way of life. I had a friend in Paris who was from Quebec and she often talked about it. The only thing that I didn't like was the long freezing cold winter they have.

I had submitted my application to immigrate there, I was accepted and just had to go to a medical visit to confirm the whole thing.

Looking at Thailand, a successful immigration there was very uncertain, and finding employment very challenging in a country very much different than France. I have to say that I had been interested in that country since I was 16 after seeing a documentary about it and I had books about many countries in Southeast Asia. I was fascinated by the Thai language and its writing, which I learned even before setting foot there.

You may be interested to read my post: How I Learned the Thai Language

What I liked about Thailand was all the year hot weather, the food and the people. I had also learned that I could work in films there, which I did after a very difficult start. An important factor on the decision was that I was married to a Thai woman, at the time my first wife.

Long story short, guess which country I chose?

Thailand!

And I have been here for 25 years never looking back.

But the purpose of this post is to reflect on what if I had chosen Canada?

I sometimes think about that. Maybe I would still be there and still be married to the same woman, or I would have divorced the same, and then remarried with a Canadian? Maybe I would have had 3 children there, or just moved again to another country.

My life would have been completely different with that choice. Maybe I would have stayed in the same line of work? Maybe this was not destined to happen.

One thing is sure, I would not be married to my lovely wife of today and my lovely daughter would not exist and in fact, her own existence is linked to that choice of going to Thailand instead of Canada.

Insn't that mind bugging?

Of course, there are many other choices that led to meet my wife also, but the first big decision to live in a country instead of another created a life that would not be otherwise.

Is that destiny?

It is possible maybe that I went to Canada, stayed there for a while, then moved to Thailand, met my wife and have my daughter Christina.

Is taking another route would have given the same result?

All images are CC0 from https://pixabay.com except the last one that is my own.

I hope that you enjoyed reading that post and I invite you to comment below and tell me what you think, and also upvote and resteem so more people can see this post.

Would you please help @jerrybanfield become a top 20 witness because you can help funding projects to build Steem as explained here? Vote for jerrybanfield as a witness or set jerrybanfield as a proxy to handle all witness votes at https://steemit.com/~witnesses. Read the 5 reasons why I'm voting for Jerry Banfield as a witness and how to vote in my post.

Michel Gerard

www.michelgerardonline.com

#story #love #philosophy

7 years ago in #life by gmichelbkk (66)

$48.14

Sort:

Trending

[-]

crescendoofpeace (64) 7 years ago

I can totally relate to your post, because I've made life-changing decisions several times now, and my life would have been entirely different had I stayed where I was.

As just one example, I grew up in Los Angeles, California, and although I loved it there, I knew the chances of being able to afford a house one day were slim at best. For that, and many other reasons, including having my car window shot out on my way to work one day, I made my first big move, across the continent to Tampa Bay, Florida.

After becoming a stockbroker, and finding my way to a company that I actually liked working for, as they were ethical and honest, a rarity in the business, the bottom dropped out of the stock market and I suddenly went from making decent money to making nothing. Overnight.

About that time, a German banker and lawyer I'd been corresponding with suggested that I visit him in Luxembourg, potentially to help him with the English part of his research for his doctoral dissertation.

I had always wanted to live in another country, preferably for six months to a year, so I took him up on his invitation, and was in Luxembourg for nearly ten months, which I wouldn't trade for the world. I learned a great deal about myself, and what was really important to me in life, not to mention a great deal about international securities and banking law, while there.

Back in Florida, a series of intense encounters with the spirits of loved ones who had passed on ultimately led me to dissolve my marriage, which after some time, led me to meet my current husband. I've recounted some of these experiences in https://steemit.com/jerrybanfield/@crescendoofpeace/a-passion-of-spirit-swc, which seems to have escaped notice thus far.

More recently, my husband and I chose to move from Florida to a small mini farm in Middle Tennessee, with the intention of turning it into an organic permaculture orchard, incorporating forest farming, aquaponics and more. We've made a lot of progress, but we still have a long way to go.

We ultimately plan on hosting retreats, and possibly using it as a teaching facility, mostly in online video format, to teach others how to live greener, more self-sufficient lives.

Ultimately, I've led an interesting life, mostly due to my ability to keep myself open to new experiences, including a willingness to live in the moment and act spontaneously when warranted.

I had help in this regard, as my dad became a Buddhist when I was twelve, and my mom took me to classes in meditation and yoga when I was seventeen and eighteen, respectively. I still maintain a daily meditation practice, which more than anything else, has helped me remain mindful.

I haven't learned Polish yet, but I'm rededicating myself to the effort, and we would both like to learn French as well, so who knows? Perhaps you'd be willing to assist us along the way in that effort. ;-)

Thanks for your post.