Freedom – choosing our character

One powerful thing I have learned about life is we’re free to choose our character.  We have the freedom of choosing our own character.  It’s a choice. This means we can choose the type of person we want to become.  The power in that sentence “we’re free to choose our character” still motivates my life to this day.

Prior to learning this, my life had a lot of bad habits.  Addiction to drugs and alcohol meant my life was surrounded by people that were just like me.  We all lived to use and used to live, to maintain our shields of numbness.

It’s pretty hard to improve your life when you are surrounded by negative, self-seeking actions no matter what the actions are.  Be it an addiction, gambling, a crime we become much less than we are capable of.  We lower our bar of expectations subconsciously as we sink lower and lower, caught up in our web of negativity.  Despite the fact that we think there is no way out…there is.

When I entered recovery, I was amazed and overwhelmed with a simple thought.  We allow ourselves to be molded by the people around us.  If I wanted a different life I had to make some serious changes.   Just being sober and clean is not enough. I suffered from extreme guilt, overwhelmed by some of the things and choices I had done.   I had to change the people, the places and the things in my life with positive people, places, and things.

It is easy to drop the old friends, they were never my friends, they were all “takers” in life. I surrounded myself with people that had what I wanted, a better life.  We absorb the people around us.  The places I used to hang out at were not positive nor good.  I replaced them with 12 step meeting places and church.   Things, well the good things in life were mine for the taking if I followed a simple rule…”You reap what you sow”.

We can choose our character the type of person we want to be if we commit ourselves to our self-development.  We can allow ourselves to be molded by the people around us.  We can become less than we’re capable of, or we can become all that we’re capable of.  We have the freedom of choice to become whoever we want to be in life by developing our character, “One step at a time”