Jessica Soroky continues her series Leadership is a Choice.

All the Hollywood romantic comedies would leave one to believe that love on that grand of scale is a thing left up to only fate or destiny. Tonight I learned that love is both a matter of choice and a matter of a heart meant to find and love that one special person.

Over the course of my life I have loved many people, I love many right now all at the same time. Those loves are all unique in their own right. My closest friends I adore for their never-ending laughs, constant support and willingness to never abandon another no matter what is happening.

My family – I can’t even put that love into words without fear of short circuiting my computer when the tears refuse to stop falling. They are my heart, my soul and the reason (literally) for who I am.

Christopher, Bill McCarley and this entire community. That is a love that some may say only comes when you are a part of something so much bigger than yourself. When you know that across the globe there are people who study personal responsibility, freedom, power and choice and who are committed to a journey that we will all be on for a lifetime. This romance has been the reason for some of my greatest challenges and pains – but is also the reason for my greatest highs. I never imagined such highs were possible before falling in love with this community.

So why am I rambling about love? Don’t go checking your calendars. Nothing to worry about. It’s months before all those plastic red hearts fill every store.  

This love story comes under cover of the 5 a.m. darkness and within the quietness of a house that only happens when all but one of its inhabitants is still deeply asleep.

This love story started with choice. With me doing something I love to do – teaching a training class full of intelligent, amazing, limitless people just how capable they truly are. I stood up in front of this class many, many months ago and spoke on how much I believe that my entire reality is my choice. I spoke about The Responsibility Process and how it’s elegance was the red pill I never knew I was so desperate to take.

I had no idea that someone sitting in that class would have a breakthrough and begin to make choices in his life that would lead to my favorite love story – my own.

I have written in my blogs a few different times about this person along our journey. It has absolutely not always been easy. It wasn’t something I ever expected, but from the very beginning—before any dates or sweet kisses goodnight—it was founded in choice.

He had lived his life out of obligation for many years, convinced he was doing the “right” things and trying constantly to convince himself that the love he yearned for, the love he saw in those movies, was just that – a fantasy. He attempted to convince himself the unhappiness he felt was “normal”.

He made a different choice one day. This new choice (as painful as it was) set him free. For the first time in as long as he could probably remember he put his happiness first and took back power of his life.

When he came into my life I learned that my class had inspired this. AsI continued to learn of the man he is, our connection grew and I found myself trying to control the giddy school girl just beneath the surface. For the first time I had found someone with whom I felt 100% comfortable being myself. I had no fears of what he would think. We both knew early on that this was the kind of love we each had always dreamed of.

Since those early signs of the real deal, we committed to each other that we would always come from a place of choice and never out of obligation. We committed that we would continue to grow our lives and love together because we choose to, not because of a document that might legally bind us one day or any other reason.

Here’s where it gets a little confusing – the love part, the feeling of a hundred butterflies in my stomach every time I see him. I don’t believe that’s a choice. That, I am convinced, is a part of my purpose—a part of the reason I exist. The choice comes in how I choose to love him. How I choose to love anyone.

I started this whole ramble with how there are different kinds of love. There are also different kinds of showing that love. As the holidays surround us there are so many opportunities to show love in so many different ways. Just remember after the decorations are put away and the winter  begins to really set in that every day is a chance to show the people you love just how much you love them.

I like to verbalize my love, capture it in words, and let anyone who wants to read those words share in it with me!

That’s why on the greatest night of my love story thus far I chose to capture in black and white the story of choice. Choice brought us together, choice allowed our love to grow, and just a few hours prior to writing these words, choice led him to create the most romantic of scenes before he chose to get down on one knee.

Of course I chose to say yes!

So, those Hollywood movies—whether romance, the movies with great professional riches, or just never-ending adventure—they can become reality. You are limitless in your capabilities and that Hollywood fantasy can be created by the best director in your life—you. Start today with one simple, small choice that will begin the journey of a lifetime!

Jessica Soroky, CSM

Jessica is a Certified Scrum Master with over three years of practice in agile delivery and seven years of team leadership. She is also the youngest accredited Coach in The Leadership Gift™ Program and its growing worldwide community of leaders and coaches. After five years of nonprofit development through Nellie’s Catwalk for Kids, Jessica continues her leadership journey in state government, not-for-profit, and private sector leadership.