There are all kinds of different lifestyle choices you can make, and each one impacts you significantly. Those might involve what type of job you work, what vehicle you drive, where you live, and more.
Small decisions, like whether to have pizza or tacos for dinner, probably won’t impact your life all that much. It’s when you start making choices that will affect for life for years to come that you should think about what you’re doing as carefully as possible.
Let’s talk about the more significant lifestyle decisions you can make and how each one will shape your destiny from now on.
What Kind of Vehicle You Drive
As long as it’s capable of passing a safety inspection, you can drive just about any vehicle you want. That might be a truck, car, motorcycle, or whatever else is street-legal.
However, driving a brand-new, top-of-the-line vehicle is a little different than driving a beat-up old junker that can barely make it to your job and back every day. For one thing, people look at you differently depending on what you drive. If it’s clear you don’t care much about your car, some individuals might think that translates to other parts of your life as well.
If you ride a motorcycle every day, then statistically, it’s more likely that you’ll get in a fatal accident. If you drive a car that does poorly in cold weather, you may keep getting stuck in the snow, making you late for work.
Ultimately, your vehicle choice says a lot about you, and it can impact you every day. You should think carefully not only about what vehicle you can afford but also about how it’s going to affect your life.
Whether You Partner with Someone or Stay Single
Whether you partner with someone or remain single will impact your life quite a bit too. Maybe you meet someone, and you feel like you can make it work with them in the long term. You either decide to cohabitate with them, or else you marry them and live together.
If you do so, you’re creating a support network for yourself, assuming it’s a healthy relationship where you two help each other. If you have a hard day, your spouse or partner can cheer you up, and vice versa. Many people find that it’s easier to get through life’s tribulations with someone else by their side.
On the other hand, maybe you feel better when you’re single. If you’re perpetually single, you can pretty much do whatever you want, whenever you want. If you’re going to stay out all night, no one can say anything about it. You can have whatever sexual adventures you like as well.
Each system has its benefits, but being single can be tough if you get sick and there’s no one to take care of you. Also, some people get lonely if they’re by themselves all the time.
Whether You Have Kids or Not
Having kids or not having them will impact your life in all sorts of ways. You might not have any, and then you and your spouse or partner will probably have a lot more spending money since you don’t have any dependents. If you decide one day that you want to pick up and go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, you won’t have to worry about finding a babysitter.
Still, some people regret it if they don’t have kids. For one thing, there’s no one to carry on your family name, and that’s important to some people. Also, you have no one to share your wisdom with and raise in your image, and that’s something some parents enjoy.
One final point is that if you don’t have children, there’s sometimes no one to help care for you when you’re older, and you’re not as mentally and physically sound as you once were. If you have kids and maintain a good relationship with them, your adult children can help care for you in your dotage.
Whether You Get a College Education or Not
Whether or not you get a college education is one more potentially significant life decision. Generally, if you don’t go to college, you can’t get a job that makes as much money.
Of course, there are exceptions. For instance, you might go to a trade school and become something like a master plumber.
If you do, you can command a salary that’s every bit as impressive as someone who got their BA from an accredited university. Also, some college degrees don’t turn out to be worth all that much, especially if you get yours in a discipline that is not highly in demand.
If you don’t go to college, though, it’s also true that you might not meet so diverse a group of people as you otherwise would. One nice thing about attending a university is that it often gives you a chance to meet many people from different regions, from diverse cultures, with other religions, of different sexual orientations, and so forth.
This is nice because it broadens your mind. If you’re only around people your whole life who are just like you, that’s not always the best way for you to grow and find out about other viewpoints besides your own.
There are other significant life choices you can make, like what kind of job you get. You might get one that makes you miserable, or you may find one that you love.
You have to choose where in the world you want to live. Maybe you end up in a city you despise, and that colors all of your life experiences.
You have to choose whether to obey all laws or disobey some of them. Criminal activity changes your life, and not usually in a positive way.
Every decision you make will send you in a different direction, so remember that as you try to navigate your day-to-day activities and plan for your future.