You can be an Avenger, too!

Ah, the Avengers. A crack team of Superheroes, backed by S.H.I.E.L.D., and overseen by Nick Fury. Of course, we've seen many different formations of this top notch squad, including such reorganized groups as the New Avengers, the Younger Avengers, the Mighty Avengers, and even the Dark Avengers. Members have included some of the biggest names in Marvel Universe: Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hawkeye, War Machine, the Thing, Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, Luke Cage, Dr. Strange, Daredevil, and many many more. They are the world's best defense against any evil that may exist, both on and off this planet. Gathering the combined strengths of these great heroes, there seems to be no way to beat them. What one hero is incapable of doing on his own, a group of heroes can easily accomplish. Thanks to the innovative thinking and brilliant leadership of Nick Fury, the world's greatest heroes have been assembled to solve all the world's problems.
Sometimes we look at all the problems in our world, and wish that there were superheroes to save the day. With all the evil, we often find ourselves thinking "why can't someone just swoop in and fix this all?" It would be nice to have those heroes, but we have to make the best with what we have. Even without superheroes, we can make the world better.

The best way to do this is the same way the Avengers do it: They work together to solve the problems going on, and we can do the same thing. If we all join together, united in our cause, we can change the world. But, this is best done when we all have the same goal in mind. Never mind silly things that label us. Who cares what music we listen to, what sports we like, or if we even like sports, what political views we have, where we're from, or what we look like. Those things don't matter, and amount to nothing in an eternal perspective. We should all have the same vision, and all work together to accomplish it. United we stand, divided we fall. We need to all do our part to overcome the evils of this world, and make it the world it should be. Besides, we have God as our leader... He's a better than Nick Fury. If the Avengers can do it, so can we!

If you want to read this blog, turn to page...

You know what I miss? Choose Your Own Adventure books. How great are those? You get, like, 4 different stories in one... if not more! As you read through them, you run into different options to choose from. Do you follow the stranger into the woods, or do you just wait outside of them? Do you accept the knight's challenge, or try to find another way through the maze? There are always different occurences that come up, and you have to take the risk of what might happen. Each decision takes you to a different section of the book. "If you choose to follow the stranger into the forest, go to page 42. If you choose to not follow him, go to page 19." You get the chance to control the outcome of the book, rather than just going along with whatever the author wants. You're in control.
The nice thing about CYOA books is the ability to go back. Say you turn to page 42, and while in the forest you get attacked by a wolf and die. No problem, just turn back to page 9, and instead go to page 19 and choose to not enter the forest. Boom, you get to keep going. Any bad thing can quickly be undone simply by flipping back to the page where you made your choice, and making the other choice. Through this, we are able to avoid unhappy outcomes and can allow us to keep reading into our adventure.

Our life is a Choose Your Own Adventure book, only it's not a book. It's real. We all come to points where we have to make a choice, and deal with the consequence. We all have to choose if we're going to wake up on Sunday morning and go to Church, or if we're going to go to that party, or if we're going to serve a mission. We always have a choice to make. But, unlike in the books, when we make a mistake that doesn't end well, we can't just flip back a couple pages and choose the other choice. We have to deal with the choice we've made, and to try to fix the mistake we made. Our life is full of choices, and each choice takes us to a different section of our life. While we can go back and correct what we've done, we can't just erase what's been done and have it not happen. It's up to us to make the right choices, and get the best results out of it.