The choices I make determine the quality of life I create.

Over the course of life I will make choices that cause me to suffer. Through the process of making bad choices I can choose to learn to make better choices. With willingness and observation I can learn from the negative choices others make. But to learn how to make good choices that result in joy, peace, and freedom from suffering or harming myself and others, I must make my own choices just as other people must make their own choices.

I cannot make anyone’s choices for them. Out of empathy and respect I can certainly desire for others that they choose not to make the same negative choices I made. I can let my actions and words serve as a loving and non-judgmental example of what I learned from negative and hurtful choices. BUT, no matter what I believe, I do not have the right to dictate the choices others must make.

If I attempt to order, legislate, force, or limit other people’s power of choice over their bodies or who they love, I have moved from respect and empathy (heart/soul/Divine motivated action) into disrespect and control (ego action). Ego (personal importance, self-centeredness, judgment) is powerful and uses everything within its means to justify entitlement to limit the choices of others or rationalize forcing them to believe as ego does. However, if I am to treat others as I want to be treated, then I cannot dictate the choices others must make, no matter my ego-motivated justifications.

To treat others as I want to be treated (heart/soul/Divine motivated action), I choose to allow the choices others make about their body and whom they love to remain between them and God. Just as to love me as Jesus does it is with respect and empathy that the choices I make about my body and whom I love remain between me and the Divine also.