Choose or Lose

We have decisions to make that can change our lives forever. Choose them wisely.  In a year, you will wish you had started now. This is a good line and whenever I have to go to the dentist, get a colonoscopy, get a mammogram, get something done I want to put off, that is how I think of it. I say at eleven o’clock, if I had gone at ten for something I did not like doing or getting; it would have been over with now. I am not a put-ter-offer. I am a do it now type person. I do not want to think about it, I want it over with, especially if it is dental or medical. Now something I like, I will put it off so I have time to think about it, anticipate it and love the thought of it. Napoleon Hill (do not know he is) said “Don’t wait; the time will never be right.” My father had an older sister, Jenny was her name. From her pictures when she was young, she seemed very stylish looking for the year of about 1900 or earlier. Every man that was interested in her, she seemed to feel was not good enough for her. Where she got that idea, I do not know. There was a very well to do man who was in the furniture business then with the name of Moses. He really liked her and Mom who was married to Dad in 1929 told me that Jenny from what she heard from Dad looked down on him. Why, they did not know, he really cared for her; she kept on looking and waiting and years rolled by and when I knew her as my aunt in 1939 she was already up in years. She still was not married and Moses went on and married, had lots of children and became in those days a millionaire. He was prominent in the community, had a good wife and many grandchildren. Jenny remained alone, died alone in her little apartment and laid there for several days, until Dad came to visit her one morning, opened up her door and found her dead on the floor. Dad was very sad because he always came to see her once a week like a good devoted brother he was. She had no phone in those days and had worked as a seamstress in a blouse factory. She came several times a month to visit us and adored me as her niece and my brother as her nephew. She kept searching in her younger years for what she really did not know and kept putting off even a fine marriage proposal from an up and coming businessman. She thought he did not have enough education for her and she looked down on him instead of looking up to him. She herself did not have lots of education, came from a poor family and could not see the forest for the trees. She loved my brother and I like we were her grandchildren and that was fine with us; we loved her too and she had somewhat of a family life because of us two in her life. So the time was never right for her, she thought in her mind and she kept searching for the unknown. That is what she chose and her life turned difficult as the years went by and she had a hard time earning a living and lived a very modest and sparse life. She chose this for herself. Moses acquired more and more material things and his company employed hundreds of workers and Mom use to say, not in front of Jenny, “Look what Jenny could have had in life; if only she could have looked past her silly thoughts and seen the potential of a good man”. Funny thing, Mom was related to Moses on her Mom’s side and of course, Jenny was Dad’s older sister. Sometimes, maybe some of us want to wait until something ‘better’ comes along and perhaps for them, that is a good thing. For others, like Jenny, it was an error in judgment because the man adored her and she liked him a lot; not enough to commit herself to him. She wanted to wait and wait she did and when she died alone, it was very sad for all of us and especially for her. My cousin was the opposite. She met a young man at work in D.C., outside of her religion and in those days, very few of us married someone not in our religion. We had been brought up to keep our marriage in our religion and many of us would not have dared to do otherwise, because we would have offended our folks. Things have changed and perhaps I think for the best. We marry someone we love and if we have an opposite religious belief, we can always live together and still practice in some ways our own religion and the other person theirs and still have a fine marriage. We can raise the children knowing both religions and still be happy. My cousin’s Mom and Dad were satisfied that she even got a guy as they said in those days and an especially nice guy. Her grandmother who was of the old school of thinking about religion was very against it and told her granddaughter all of her thoughts. The granddaughter neatly, nicely and happily told Grandma, this was her life and he made her happy. They are still married now forty years later with children and grandchildren, so Grandma was wrong and my cousin did not turn out to be like Aunt Jenny, alone. In Jenny’s case, it was not religion, it was stuck up-ness, and they were both of the same religion. Sometimes in life, we have to make life happening decisions and not wait. Sometimes we should wait. We have to have the mindset to know which to choose, the waiting or the not waiting, do it now mode. A friend of mine had the same kind of decision to make. She had two boyfriends and liked or loved both in the same way. One lived here, several blocks from her home and the other in the Eastern Shore which is three hours or so from here. Her mother advised her to marry the one close by and in her heart she did that because she wanted her daughter nearby her. She really liked the Eastern Shore guy but did not want her daughter to move so far away. In the final hours, the daughter married the Eastern Shore guy and came once a month to visit Mom and Dad. She had two daughters and a nice life and Mom was glad that she did not listen to her. Everyone has to do what is right and proper for their self at that time, at that moment in their life. It may be a hard decision but as Winston Churchill said a long time ago “We make a living by what we get and we make life from what we give.” This was written four years ago for another Patch, but I pulled it up and I thought it still relevant and honest now. We all have it in our power to choose and hopefully, we choose what is right for us and optimistically, we will have chosen the right and happy way. I chose the right way when I decided to write for Cockeysville.Patch.com now called Hunt Valley-Cockeysville.Patch.com. If I had not chosen them, this one hundred forty-ninth article since July 19th 2011 would not have been written and I would not have been this happy expressing my thoughts, ideas and encouragement through my articles to all of you out there in computer online land. Perhaps, you would never have gotten to know me, nor I you, the readers and that would have been sad. Choose whatever you think is right for you and be proud you did and the benefits will outlast any doubts you may have had doing it. Be proud you had the courage, intelligence and fortitude to do what is right for you and be happy forever that you did not wait. Thanks Nayana, editor of this Patch because you too were cognizant and intelligent as a young woman to choose me, an old lady senior to write for you. We are both happy over our decisions and we know that to choose wisely makes life so nice.