5 Choices You Can Make that Impact Your Lifestyle Tremendously

During your life, you will have the opportunity to make many different choices. Some things will occur over which you have no control as well. Still, you have more of a chance to shape your life due to the choices you make versus what fate or blind luck sends your way.

Let’s talk about the biggest choices you can make that will impact your lifestyle. Based on what is on this list, you might end up enjoying your life a lot more.

You Can Choose to Obey the Law

Deciding whether or not to obey the law will impact your lifestyle more than almost anything else you elect to do or not to do. Deciding whether to obey the law is always a black and white issue. It’s not like the difference between a claim and a lawsuit, where there are two options that are very similar to one another. Obeying the law or not obeying it are diametrically opposing options.

There are a few laws you might choose not to obey that will probably not get you in a great deal of trouble. For instance, jaywalking is technically illegal, yet doing it once or twice is not going to land you in jail.

There are other crimes, though, that seem to lead to further criminal activity every time you do them. For example, if you start stealing from your job because you feel like no one is watching you, that can start you on a path toward worse activities. You might begin by doing that, but then you decide to break into your job site after hours to steal more things at the same time because you feel like there is very little security there.

There are many ways to break the law, but doing so regularly means continually taking risks. If you keep doing it, the chances are higher that the police will catch you, and you may end up in jail because of the choices you made.

You Can Choose to Finish High School and Go to College

You might choose to drop out of high school because you don’t like it very much or you think there is no point to it. If you do that, you will have very few decent job opportunities.

If you graduate high school, that opens up more job possibilities for you, but if you elect not to go to college, many doors will stay closed to you. If you go to college and get a four-year degree, that degree will make many potential employers pay attention to you who otherwise would not have done so.

You might feel like you can’t go to college because you don’t have the money to do it. There are always ways around that, though. You can try to get a scholarship, or you can borrow money. Student loan debt isn’t enjoyable to carry around with you, but getting that degree can make it worthwhile.

You Can Choose to Marry or Not

You might choose to marry someone if you love them and they feel the same way about you. If you do this, you may start a family with them.

That can prove to be a great choice for some people, but not so much for others. Some people do very well living the married life. If you marry and start a family, that can teach you some responsibility. You will need to start caring for other people and putting their needs above your own.

You might also find that staying single is the best thing for you. Nothing says that one lifestyle choice is better than the other. They are simply different, and while marriage and cohabitation might work for some individuals, it might prove disastrous for someone else.

You Can Choose to Live in This Country or Leave It

You may decide to stay here in the United States, or perhaps you’ll start to feel at some point like you would do better off living abroad. Many other countries go about their business differently than America does. Perhaps you want to leave because you don’t like what’s happening here politically.

In another country, you can enjoy things like government-subsidized healthcare. That is one thing America does not offer all of its citizens yet. There are other perks you might enjoy living abroad as well.

Living abroad will undoubtedly change your entire lifestyle, but keep in mind that you can’t just pack up and move because you feel like it. Often, you will need to have a skill that this new country wants.

If you’re a doctor or teacher, that might be enough for them to want you. If you’ve worked in the fast-food industry all your adult life, that’s a harder sell.

You Can Choose Where in the Country You Want to Live

You can also stay here in this country, but you can live in different parts of it. For example, you might reside in a very rural area, like the middle of West Virginia or Oklahoma. That is quite different from living in a big city like Los Angeles or New York.

Living in a rural setting will be a lot cheaper, and that might appeal to you. If you live in an impoverished part of the country, you can rent or buy a place for much less money.

If you do this, though, there probably will not be many cultural opportunities nearby. There will not be museums to visit or professional sports franchises to follow.

If you prioritize culture, that probably means living in a place that costs a lot more for nearly everything. City living and country living are entirely different from one another.

There are plenty more examples of things you can decide that will shape your life. Take some time to think about what matters to you during each of your life’s phases, and that should help point you toward the existence that makes you happy.

Photo by Antonio Feregrino on Unsplash

What are you looking for?