The response you choose
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Smile at the setbacks, laugh at the frustrations. Life is the way it is, yet you have wide latitude in the responses you choose.
You can be serious while also having fun. You can be tolerant and open to new ideas while also standing firm in your deeply-held values.
It’s completely possible for you to be imaginative and at the same time realistic. Those things other people assume to be in conflict, you can bring together in creative and valuable ways.
You don’t have to get caught up in an assumption that going with one option necessarily excludes all the other options. Many things can be true, many things possible, at once.
When conventional wisdom seems to make no sense, give yourself permission to be unconventional. Dare to say what’s obvious, and dare to see beyond the obvious.
Just because it’s always been done, just because everyone is saying or doing it, doesn’t mean it’s the best choice for you. Take all you know and feel and care about into account, and go with the response you choose.
— Ralph Marston