We often live our lives as though we had an endless road to travel ahead of us. We tell ourselves that there will always be another day, another relationship, another chance to make a good deal. We while away the hours in idleness or worry, day dream or anxiety. We worry endlessly about what other think of us, whether we are being paid attention to, or noticed. Some of us, especially the younger among us, have a fascination for celebrity, which has often been made more acute by our fascination with social media – Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare can give all of us a false sense of celebrity. There are moments of lightning clarity in life however. Moments marked by the illness of someone close to us, or by the loss of someone who we thought we loved and could build a life with, or by a sudden defeat in our career. These moments open up the possibility of failure and make our sense of the world around us more acute. They are turning points.They present us with choice – forks in the road. Often, if we choose the wrong fork – which is often the easier one – we enter a land of sadness, depression and self-doubt. Choosing the higher road, however rocky and challenging it may seem at first, will, however eventually become a sunlit path. You see, life, when confronted as an exciting challenge, when lived for others, when lived cleanly and without cynicism, you see, a life like that become a joy. So when you encounter that fork in the road. The fork which is marked by a stake in the ground that screams: “Life is short – choose!” I encourage you to choose the high road. Choose to choose, and not to follow. Leading a principled life is worth at least two normal lives because you never had to have a practice run.