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We like to think our lives are shaped by big moments.

But in truth, our lives are shaped by small, often invisible decisions—especially the ones we rationalize.

We call them little things. A harmless shortcut. A decision no one will ever see. But each of these moments writes a line in the story of who we become.

Example:

You have one too many at the company Christmas party.

You contemplate calling an Uber, but then you remember you’ll have to pick up the car tomorrow, you have to explain to your spouse you had too much to drink, the inconveniences pile up, and you decide you’re okay to drive.

You make it home, no harm, no foul.

Your terrible decision has no external, physical consequence.

However, it has internal, mental, emotional, and spiritual consequences.

You became the person who prioritized your convenience over every other person’s life who was on the road with you.

You become the person who says, “Look, nothing bad happened; it’s okay.”

It becomes easier to make more selfish, terrible decisions in the future because you have proof it’s okay when you do.

Or

You’re behind on your quarterly sales goals, and leadership is watching.

So, you shift a few numbers around. You reclassify an expense, you forward-date a contract, or maybe you massage the spreadsheet.

Nothing huge. Just a “little” tweak.

You tell yourself, “I’ll fix it later….”

And your boss never finds out.

In a split second, you’ve become someone who believes looking like you’re succeeding is more important than actually doing the right thing.

And that shift? That subtle rewire of your integrity? That’s the first domino.

This mentality may never manifest physically in your life; it may never catch up to you as the “moment everything changed.”

But, I believe in the same way I know I’m short and have brown hair, it will come calling.

Sooner or later, our decisions and rationalizations will collect the tax they’re owed.

It’s an immutable law of the universe.

There’s enough anecdotal evidence that when we’re dying, as the life force leaves our bodies, the world and our role in it becomes crystal clear.

Maybe, for the first time ever, we see who we truly are.

A life fueled by terrible decisions that require rationalizations and justifications will leave us on our deathbeds, breathing our last breath through the crystal clear clarity that,

“I lived a terrible life.”

Our lives are the aggregate of our decisions.

If we make more decisions requiring rationalizations than those that don’t, we’re on a bullet train to regret.

The driving home example wasn’t hypothetical; I’ve made that decision more times than I care to admit. I’m grateful nothing terrible ever happened, and I’m grateful I’ve been sober for over three years.

I also know when I worked as a Senior Enterprise Account Manager for a large technology firm, I made a decision that shattered my life as I knew it.

I defrauded our partner, a Fortune 500 company, by leveraging my extensive knowledge of their service contract policy for my financial gain.

My paychecks were shrinking; I’d fabricated an identity rooted in money and materialism. When that was threatened, I operated out of fear of being seen as less than and not worthy.

For the ten and half months I was committing fraud, I was doing whatever I could to escape the perceived “pain” I was experiencing at the moment – as if that moment and its pain would last forever.

Even though I have insurmountable evidence that moments and pain are ephemeral, the heartbreak in high school that crushed me at the time is now something I chuckle about.

My uncle’s passing, and the devastating pain I experienced when I got the phone call now creates warmth as I think of my favorite memories with him.

Pain is immediate, and we seek the path of least resistance to escape it, even at the cost of delayed consequences.

I have awful eyesight; I can’t see clearly beyond a couple of inches past my nose without corrective lenses.

Leaving my house without corrective lenses is unsafe.

When I was committing fraud, it was as if my corrective lenses were in my grasp, but I refused to put them on.

I refused to look a few inches beyond the short-term relief my fraudulent decisions provided and into the inevitable long-term consequences.

I was moving through life inches at a time, one fraudulent decision after another.

I sacrificed long-term inner peace and emotional freedom for short-term relief from temporary pain.

I approach decisions and choices differently now.

One of the “corrective” lenses I use that make challenging decisions and choices easier to make is this:

I think about the ideal version of myself, living the grandest expression of life I can think of.

I’m talking about the version of myself I aspire to be, living an authentic, dynamic definition of success where I consistently access more and more of my potential as I challenge myself to go deeper into my personal truth and live with profound purpose, meaning, and fulfillment.

Which creates what I ultimately desire, creativity, inner peace, and emotional freedom.

I envision this version of myself and ask a simple question,

“What would HE do?”

One thing is for sure: HE wouldn’t choose the easy path if the easy path didn’t take him where HE wanted to go in the long term.

Envisioning this version, asking the simple question, and executing the answer has been an incredible journey.

Do I do it all the time? God, no, I stumble a lot. I still make decisions and choices that don’t serve the long-term vision I have for my life; I still get in my own way and self-sabotage.

And then I ask the same question, just a little differently,

“Okay, what would HE do now?”

The ideal filter flows perfectly into the next step, the legacy filter.

Imagine the decision you’re about to make becomes a chapter in your biography; thanks to the internet, our terrible decisions become indelible marks on our lives.

I know how true this is when I Google myself.

Imagine this is the story people see as.

Can you live with that version of you being permanent?

The decisions we rationalize today shape the person we become tomorrow—and every rationalization is a rehearsal for regret.

Our decisions create our lives. One choice at a time.

What story will yours tell?