Choice, your only true freedom Published Sept. 22, 2009 By Lt. Col. Allen Henderson 572nd Global Mobility Readiness Squadron commander TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Throughout my life, I am always amazed at the number of times I hear the expression, "I did not have a choice." There are always choices in everything we do in life. With every choice there are consequences; good, bad or indifferent they exist. I find when people say they did not have a choice, they are just unwilling to accept the outcome of the other possible choices. I believe the difference between truly successful people, and the ones who are just happy to get by and complain, is accepting the results of their choices and learning from them. A prime example is a young Airman who came to work and did his job as required, but was upset because he was never selected as a quarterly award winner. I explained to him that it was his choice not to be selected. It is no secret that you must be well rounded in all aspects to win an award. I told him if he truly wanted to be recognized for his hard work he should look at the choices the winners were making. So, he chose to learn from his peers and spend more time getting involved with unit, base and community projects in addition to furthering his education. As a result of his choices, he was chosen as a wing annual award winner. This is not to say you will always make the right choices and everything will always work out, but you will be in the driver's seat, not someone else. As I sat down to write this article, the normal apprehensions came over me. I do not necessarily like to write for publication. I write like I think, all over the place and not in any real order. However, I obviously chose to write this article and if it makes even one person think, it was worth the effort. Life is nothing but choices and no matter where you are, that is the one thing that can never be taken from you.