You Decide

“I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had ever happened.” echoes in the thoughts of Frodo Baggins as he stands on the shore with his burden in hand. His eyes, full of doubt and fear, stream tears as he stares across the water at his journey ahead.

“So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide”, a voice from the past chimes in. “All you have to do is to decide what to do with the time that has been given you.”

The words of his friend Gandalf change his thoughts. Frodo grasps his burden, his situation, his challenge, his journey, the ring with a clinched fist and moves forward pushing off into what lies ahead. He has made up his mind to make the most of the time he has been given.

As you can probably tell I just finished The Fellowship of the Ring, and caught something I haven’t in the past. Frodo is going and will be going through a tough time (for the next two sequels). He’s lost his friend in the Caves, and is now forced to leave the others behind. At this point he is troubled by all that has gone wrong, could go wrong and the chance that his very world could come to an end at any point; and for a moment he is caught in a pity party.

”Woe is me!” Been there, done that. When the very worst has happened, when things are out of my control and I feel alone; it’s easy to sit on the couch, sit at my desk, in my truck or wherever and look out saying “I wish none of this had ever happened.” But what good does that ever do, I mean really. Gandalf’s words are so very true “that is not for them to decide.” Neither is it for me to decide whether or not something should have happened. My wishing will not make it all better. My wishing will not change the past. My wishing is only wasting the time that I have been given to face it. My wishing is wasting the time to do something great.

It’s a simple concept that we all have trouble grasping. We can’t change the past or what has happened. Worry does not fix it. What we can do is decide what we will do in the next 10 minutes to make our lives a little more interesting than it was just a few minutes ago. We can clinch our fists and move forward. The decision is yours.