[becoming/being]

I breathed ocean air this weekend, got sand in my hair, and salt in my eyes. I watched birds and dolphins and sea lions and ships. I heard waves crashing and crashing and crashing over rocks that were wet but unmoved.

And I thought more and read more about choices.

The choices I (and you, and her, and we, and they) make every day have a powerful influence on the rest of life. We rarely wake up where we want to be or who we want to be without effort. And that effort is sometimes a grand gesture, like quitting a job or moving to a new state, but more often it is slow, daily, momentarily, and frequently unaware. We become who we are through a series of choices which are often so small we never notice them.

Which sort of terrifies me, as I can live days or years without mindfulness of who I am, what I am doing, or where I am going. And changing my way of thinking has to be through small, steady integrations. The only way I have some control over my future is in those immediate decisions.

The wrong question is whether someone chose to be the way they are or they just are. Personality cannot be chosen, but character can. The right question is: how does this small decision make me the person I want to become?

...We tend to become the decisions we make. The more we choose something, the more we become that something. We are all in the process of solidifying our identities by the decisions we make. With each decision, we pick up momentum in the direction of that decision.

...The more we choose something, the harder it is to choose otherwise, until we finally are solidified - eternalized - in our decision. The momentum of our character becomes unstoppable. We create our character with our decisions, and our character, in turn, exercises more and more influence on the decisions we make.

...The difference between a Hitler and a Mother Teresa started somewhere with a small decision.

I (you, her, we, they)...had, and have, the potential of beings of incredible love. But that means we had, and have, the potential to be beings of incredible destruction. And we, to a large degree, make ourselves one or the other. [boyd 51-53]

You may feel like you don't have a choice to think a certain thing or respond a certain way or be fit or be loved, but you do, it's just in tinier pieces than you expected.

There is so much more to learn and ponder about this subject.
So the question is: today. right now. this moment.
Who am I because of my choices? and by my choices, who am I becoming?

all of this can be broken,
all of this can be broken,
hold your devil by his spoke and spin him to the ground [laura marling, 'devil's spoke']