[ Left: Napa Valley by Don Lytton ]
Have you decided?" Jimmy asked.
Yes, I have.
"Do you know what you want?"Jimmy's pen was poised to write.
I know what I want. I have decided: I'd like a small two bedroom cottage in Napa (preferably the Silverado foothills.) I'd like a busier speaking schedule, more bookings to do my creativity key notes and brainstorming workshops -- everywhere. I'd like the sunroof on my car to work, and I want to lose weight using a pill or a metabolism transplant from a skinny person who eats dessert at every meal. Yeah, I know what I want. I've made a lot of decisions. That's my list this week.
"I meant, what do you want to eat--that's on our menu?" Jimmy asked again.
It is estimated that each of us makes tens of thousands of decisions everyday. First thing in the morning: coffee before a shower? Socks to match pants or shirt? Answer the cell, call back on the way to work. 
Pickup dry cleaning before or after work? Who’s turn is it to drop off the kids? Take the shortest route to work or the little bit longer way down by the lake? Six inch or twelve inch sub for lunch, cold slaw or chips--baked or BBQ? Print the monthly report on one side or two sides of the paper? Answer the cell, or keep working? Pay bills during lunch, or do it on the phone on the way home, or online during the evening news? Window or aisle? Single or double shot? Soup or salad? Cuff or straight leg? Highlights or different color streaks? Hard case or soft saddle leather with strap?
At least a few hundred times each day we make choices and other decisionsdecide. But even having “the usual,” the same thing, is also a choice. automatically--no frontal lobe stuff, just do it as natural as breathing. We always get an English muffin with breakfast so we don't have to
For the first time in months I had a craving for ice cream today. I decided to drive directly down Piedmont Avenue and turned left into the parking lot at Fenton's Creamery--a Bay area landmark for more than 100 years. (But the ice cream and toppings are made fresh everyday.) My family’s first visit to Fenton’s was back in the 1960s after moving to Northern California from Pasadena. My dad had decided to accept a new job in San Jose. Today, I decided on three scoops of chocolate chip mint.
Our lives are the end result of a collection of choices--tens of thousands of choices, daily.
What choices do you make that effect others? How is your life effected by the choices others make--Congress, your spouse, your kids, neighbors, politicians you voted for, politicians you did not vote for, people you have never met who make decisions in Detroit and Hong Kong about car interiors and waistband elasticity.
What will you choose today that will effect you tomorrow next January the fourth, and ten years from now? If you made a choice yesterday that you don't like now, change it with a different choice today, rather than regretting it tomorrow, and tomorrow, and . . .
Nothing is a mistake if you learn from it.
Those decisions that were less than the best can be corrected with better choices now that you have more information and a better understanding.
Do you know what you want?
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