conscious choice is the most empowering resource that I…
Page 241 conscious choice is the most empowering resource that I have in my life. I can't control what happens in the world, but I can certainly control how I respond to whatever does happen.
— from Takeoff Into Chaos · 10 greatest gifts I give my children by Steven W. Vannoy
In the book
So here is how to take off anyway, with the engines screaming and the traffic all around — small inputs, sure hands, one maneuver at a time. The mindset is everything, and it rests on a single hinge: you cannot control what happens in the sky, but you can always control your response to it — and that conscious choice is the most empowering resource a human being possesses. Epictetus reduced it to a kind of serenity formula: do not demand that things happen as you wish, but wish for them to happen as they do, and you will fly calm. — Takeoff Into Chaos