Which path will you Choose


Which path will you Choose

There are quite a few people that I’m a fan of. There are individuals out there who make a habit of setting out to enact real change in our world, and they inspire me to try and leave the world a better place than it was when I got here. I’m also a fan of people who have less of an altruistic impact in our society and more of a “distracting people from their problems” type of impact. Some of them are authors of my favorite books. Other people are actors from my favorite TV shows and movies, and others are performers from my favorite musicals. One of these people that I love happens to be Idina Menzel.

Most people are familiar with her even if they’re not aware of it. You’d have to be living under a rock to not have ever heard the song “Let it go” from Frozen. But she’s also been in some popular musicals as well. A lot of you out there have probably heard of Rent or Wicked, and she just so happened to be in Rent the movie and in the original Broadway production of Wicked. Her voice is so powerful and every time I hear her sing I can’t help but marvel at how incredible she sounds. That’s why when I found out that she was going to be starring in a musical called If Then, that just so happened to be passing through LA, I had to go and see it.

*Spoilers ahead*

If Then ran at the Pantages a few years ago when I saw it.  The basic premise of it was that every decision that you make can have major consequences for you. Something as simple as deciding to take the freeway to work instead of the streets can end up changing your life in a distinct way. This point was illustrated by the character that Idina played. Her name is Elizabeth.

After getting divorced, Elizabeth decides to move back to New York. The show starts off by her meeting up with two of her old friends that she used to hang out with when she lived in New York previously. One of them, Kate,  invites her to spend the day hanging out with her. She also makes the suggestion that Elizabeth should start going by the name “Liz.” Her other friend, Lucas, tells her that she should spend her time networking and trying to find a real job. He also makes the suggestion that she should call herself “Beth.” From this point, the story branches off in two very different directions.

One path follows Elizabeth after she said yes to Kate and the other follows her after she decided to say yes to Lucas. As the story progresses you see how much her life changes by choosing to do something as simple as ignoring a phone call from an unidentified number, for example. In one path she ends up married with kids. Later on she’s widowed when her husband dies at war, but she eventually ends up getting a job that she’s interested in. On the other path she doesn’t get married and spends most of her time working and alienating the people closest to her. Things get better towards the end of the play and she starts to realize that she should spend more time doing things outside of work. She even ends up meeting a guy that she agrees to have coffee with. Ultimately, the point is that something as seemingly insignificant as saying yes to hanging out with one friend instead of a different one can set you on an entirely different direction.

*Spoilers Over*

In your life you will be presented with many different decisions. Some of them will seem really big, like choosing a job or a place to live, and others, like deciding between whether or not you’re going to wear jeans today or a dress, will seem pretty small. But the thing is, no matter how big or tiny that decision is, it’s going to end up shaping your life. That’s why it’s so important that you make sure that you’re making decisions that you want to make. If you allow other people to nudge you on to a path that you don’t really want to be on, it can end up sending you down a road that’s hard to get off of.


Choose the life that you want to live positive thinker, and make sure that you’re being true to yourself with whichever choice you pick.