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I had a choice to make - to look for work or not look for work. I decided to look for work and found I had another choice to make - to insist on a ridiculously high salary or make a reasonable request. I decided to make a reasonable request thus enhancing my chances.
To my dismay, I found another choice must be made - to accept a ground floor job or wait until something better came along.

Being hungry, I opted to take the ground floor position and discovered yet another choice required my immediate attention - to work my hardest or slack off because I saw others do it. I chose to work as though my whole life depended on that job and found another choice weighing on my shoulders. To be loved by all my peers or to go against them to make our company better, their benefits sweeter and ensure our jobs against recession. I chose not to be loved by all my peers.

When I thought surely all choices had been made, another appeared on the horizon. Should I be spiteful to those who didn't understand I worked for their best interests or hope that one day they might understand the horrible choices I faced each day? I chose to let them rest in their pettiness and worked all the harder.

For a year, I felt certain all choices were behind me; I could rest in what I'd done. Then another choice befell me. Should I take the position offered although I knew another had worked as hard as I and longer? Though I wanted the bigger paycheck, my conscience forced me to turn it down. I brought the other's name to the forefront of the conversation and he became my manager. My peers mocked me for being foolish and another choice rose to haunt me.

Should I leave the company I had come to love because I would not be taken for a fool or should I hold my head high and work all the harder to get a promotion I felt I truly earned? Leaving beckoned, but I chose to stay. I loved my work and believed my work spoke for itself; I knew my chance to rise would be forthcoming.

Twenty years later, I still love my work, but never again was I given the choice to rise to a higher position. Was it the fault of the company heads? No, it was my own. Somewhere along the way, I made the wrong choice.

It occurred to me, too, that throughout my whole life instead of looking at the choices as doorways of opportunity, I dreaded each one, often hurrying through the decision just to be rid of it. There is never a guarantee that through the many choices life forces on us, we will walk the right path. But rest assured, if our attitude is that of defeat before a choice is presented, our final choices will never represent victory.

Learn more about this author, Michelle N. Broughton.
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