It's true that you can have almost anything you want, but there's a hitch. You can't have everything you want—at least not all at once. Everything involves choices and tradeoffs.

For instance, there are many different ways to live.

You can work for a large company and devote your life to climbing the corporate ladder,

—or you can be an entrepreneur and work for yourself.

You can drive a Mercedes and devote a lot of time to accumulating material wealth,

—or you can take a bus and travel lightly, unencumbered by a lot of things.

You can get married and raise a family,

—or you can live alone.

You can live in the heart of a city, surrounded by a man--made environment,

—or you can live in the country, surrounded by nature.

You can live your entire life in the community where you were born,

—or you can be a gypsy and live in many different regions and countries.

That's the good news—you have many choices. You don't have to limit your career or lifestyle to those chosen by your parents or those offered by the community you grew up in. The bad news is, with so many choices, it's difficult to decide. Choosing one path may mean forgoing another, and the choice must often be made without any clear knowledge of how either choice will ultimately affect your life.

You have to choose, and every choice has consequences. You can have the Mercedes, but you may have to forgo the feeling of traveling lightly. You can climb the corporate ladder, but you may have to restrict the way you use your time for other things. You can get married, but in doing so, you're probably giving up some of the freedoms you would have in living alone. You get the idea. There are tradeoffs in every life decision.

Of course there are many shadings between the choices described above and these are only a few examples of the many decisions you make on an ongoing basis in forming your lifestyle. Many lifestyle decisions are not made consciously. Sometimes you just "go along," waiting to see what happens. Of course, the old saying is true, "Life is what happens while you're deciding what to do." So you can either decide to continue your current direction or decide to change it if you don't like the way it's going.