yo

Choice.

I find "choice" to be a tricky word. The choices I make every day become my habits, which then become my character, which eventually results in the person who I am.

I watched the movie, The Devil Wears Prada, yesterday. The protagonist in the movie was an idealistic, aspiring journalist who took a job as an assistant to the head honcho in fashion, an incredibly demanding boss. She initially thought fashion was a joke and insisted to herself and her live-in boyfriend that she would only do this job for a year. But slowly, she yearned for the rare praise given by her boss, internalized the frentic pace and urgency of the fashion world, and even felt empathy for her draconian boss. Whenever she would neglect her friends and family, she would say, "Ï have no choice. I have to do this." At the end, her boss actually calls her out on this cop-out and essentially says, "You always have a choice, and you made your choices. In fact, I never said this to anyone else but you remind me a lot of myself." It was then that the protagonist realizes that by her "choices," she had become a different person... a person whom she did not want to be. With that, she literally walks away from her job and then throws her blackberry in a fountain.

When do we feel like we have no choice but actually, we do? When do we cop-out and say, "I have to do this. I have no choice." instead of owning up to the fact that we made a choice and that we might need to let some people down in the choices we make -- but at the very least, we own our choices.

I have decided to take more ownership of my life. To not feel helpless and choiceless. To feel empowered. Because I am.