Observations from this week's media input...

I just finished reading an article on Yahoo News about how the internet actually makes people happier. Of course, the study had its parameters. Studies can be skewed any way imaginable. What I found of interest were the comments. Several stated short and sweet that happiness comes from inside. The comment that caught my attention was the one that ranted on the evils of the internet. And if finally dawned bright and clear that "I" decide, "me", no one else, what to make of everything that crosses my path. Everything. So much of life is neither good nor evil, it simply is, but what I make of it in my life and in my own mind decides its value to me. And it doesn't matter what the value is to someone else, unless it is truly evil. I know too well that evil does exist, and it is hungry, devouring everything that will allow it to do so. But allowing it is a choice. Sometimes, I catch the backlash of someone else's choice, but it does not change my right to choose which I follow, even if only in my mind. Not even God will choose for me; He requires I choose for myself what path I will follow, toward Him or away.

The right to choose, free agency, free will, whatever you want to call it, is not something anyone gives us. It simply is. It cannot be given or taken away by anything "outside." Me, no one else, am the only one capable of making me decide to accept my right to choose or throw it away. They may endeavor to influence, but they may not decide. They may force me to a point where there is only one choice, but I still decide how I will make that choice a part of my life. Will I choose to focus on the good or the evil? Will I choose to recognize the truth, no matter how painful, or will I choose the momentarily comforting lie? Will I choose to fight for truth or choose to do nothing or fight against it? (The latter two are essentially the same.)

I've spent a great deal of my life choosing to do nothing in the hopes of not choosing wrongly. It does not work. I've made a lot of choices that haven't turned out as I hoped, but I have continued to move forward, into being a better person and making better choices. In the last few years, I've been working toward this end: Accepting and taking responsibility not for everything but for changing myself. The only thing I actually can do. Hopefully, by changing myself, I will influence the world around me for the better. I can do no more than that. No one can. Sadly, too many abdicate responsibility and revel in the blame game.

Because I have been willing to change, I have been blessed with incredible friends, who inspire me and uplift me, many of whom I would never have known existed if not for the internet. If not for the internet, I never would have known about this:

"Look at yourself after watching this"YouTube

I know I have some mental redecorating to do.