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Education

StreetSmarts SM

Responsibility, the route to freedom

By Marc Beauchamp We typically make choices about the future but base our
Bankcard Life idea about what is possible on the past. In many instances,
we accentuate negative outcomes. We react based on old
ccording to my Merriam-Webster dictionary, behaviors and past events that happened long ago. We
choice involves the right, power or opportuni- carry scars or old stories into present life and are willing
ty to choose freely. The key word being freely. to tell anyone who asks (or doesn't ask for that matter)
A It's all about freedom, the freedom to pick one about the bad hand we were dealt or extreme challenge
thing over another. we faced.

We all have the capacity to choose to either take This bond to the past creates a prison in which we live,
responsibility for our own results or live from an alternate killing choice. We continue to play the same tapes over
place, the land of excuses, stories and reasons why we and over. I call this the Doom Loop (see Figure 1).
can't have the life we so desperately want. The truth is
that most of our decisions originate from the prison of the
past.

Figure 1: Doom Loop

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