“We all create the person we become by our choices as we go through life.”

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Do you think that’s true? Do our choices shape the person we become, or does the person we already are dictate our choices?

Does it work from the outside in, or the inside out?

I’m not sure, myself. Who we are dictates what we do. But it takes a lifetime to truly know ourselves well, and in the meantime, choices are made because they have to be made. And some outcomes are more fateful than others. I think what Eleanor Roosevelt meant is that it’s our responsibility to make our outside actions match our inner integrity. But, taken at face value, this quote can be read in numerous ways. It’s a great one for discussion.

So, feel free to discuss!

I like to think that J.K. Rowling was channeling the great and wise Eleanor Roosevelt when she wrote the line for Dumbledore: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”