Epictetus said that the root of beauty was beautiful choices. “If your choices are beautiful,” he said, “so too will you be.”

It’s simple and it’s true. You are what your choices make you, nothing more and nothing less.

As we get close to the end of 2022 and the start of 2023, it’s the perfect time to assess, are you making beautiful choices? Are you modeling beautiful behaviors? Are your kids seeing you choose the book instead of the television remote? Are you choosing to say “no” to cool opportunities to say “yes” to your kids?

Everyday presents us with plenty of opportunities to make beautiful choices. There’s the little choices we have to make daily: what you eat, how you talk to people, whether you pick up the phone or a journal, what you think about. And some days, there’s bigger choices: whether you stand up for what’s right, whether you reach down to help someone who needs it, what kind of work you do, what standards you hold yourself to.

If you want a beautiful life, there’s no escaping it: you have to make beautiful choices. If you want your kids to have a beautiful life, they will need to get in the habit of making beautiful choices? If not you, who will show them how to get in that habit?

The New Year is almost here and it’s the perfect chance to get in the habit of making beautiful choices.