August 30, 2026- The battles we're choosing

When you pick your battles, look beyond the immediate challenges and put life in perspective. Are you where you want to be? What could be better?

~Roy Baumeister

For each of us, a gap exists between our current self image and our vision of the best version of ourselves. In our lives, we will be confronted with countless battles, and we cannot possibly fight them all. When we’re deciding which ones to take on, we need to consider that gap. Will the battles we’re choosing bring us closer to or farther away from the person we would most like to be?

The adrenaline junkie in us wants to go headfirst into every battle. We want to prove our power and our worth by winning. We are never very far from the other members of the animal kingdom, wanting to assert dominance over our peers.

The peacemaker in us wants to avoid all conflicts. We want to walk away from every battle because it’s easier that way, and we’re less likely to either cause or suffer harm.

Neither extreme is going to foster meaningful change in our lives. Neither extreme is going to turn us into the person we wish to be.

There are battles out there worth fighting, and there are those worth avoiding. Which would the best version of us choose to fight? Which will bring us closer to the person we wish to be? We are our choices.