March 13. “In your hands you hold the seeds of failure or the potential for greatness. Your hands are capable, but they must be used and for the right things to reap the rewards you are capable of attaining. The choice is yours.” (Zig Ziglar)

When my younger two children were in Middle School, their principal would end the announcements each morning by saying “Make it a great day or don’t, the choice is yours”. With these words she would set their young minds off to learn and grow. My children recall these words even today, and my wife (who was working at the school at the time), will even still quote them occasionally.

One of my guilty pleasures is reading reddit.com when I get home from work. I especially like the /r/funny subredit. Usually I am looking for humorous pictures, or something funny that has happened. The other day I saw a post about the very same closing to the announcements my children used to hear. I read the comments for the post and found out that there were several people from all over the country who had this same quote said to them by their principal to start the day in Middle School.

The comments on reddit tended to mock the sentence, and the idea that there must have been a Middle School Principal convention somewhere that told all of them that this was a good idea. That’s the nature of many things on reddit…to see who can mock things best.

Personally I find the Principal’s quote, and this one by Zig Ziglar to both be very important. The choice is always mine. Whether I choose to allow the seeds of failure to blossom, or to tend the garden of success, the choice is mine. I have to constantly be using my hands, my capabilities, my wherewithal to cast off the seeds of failure, and nurture the growth of my success. That choice has to be a daily, active choice as I strive to live a more intentional life.

Today Zig Ziglar, and my children’s Middle School teacher are both affirming for me the need to make the daily choice to proceed in the direction of my dreams, and to continue to tend the garden of my success.