The future is about choices taken and not taken.

The future is about choices taken and not taken.

Is the future something to experience as it unfolds or something to purposefully influence? I recently read an article in the Collins College of Business Summer Magazine from the University of Tulsa (my uncle taught there). In the message from the Dean, A. Gale Sullenberger said tomorrow begins today. Perhaps it was that I was reading the article in the quiet, reflective part of the morning that this well-worn phrase struck me or that the future was on my mind but that morning the phrase, tomorrow begins today cause pause to think.  More importantly, I think tomorrow began last week. Every choice, large or small, we make influences the choices that can be made in the future, whether we recognize those choices today or tomorrow.

Dean Sullenberger is right when he says the future begins today because decisions we make today will create new choices that we can make tomorrow or next week. However the choices that are available today are a reflection of the choices made in the past.  We need to recognize inopportune or ill-considered choices and planned around them. Every choice we make needs to be made with consideration and thoughtfulness. Every choice opens new paths and closes others.