Last century (specifically in the 1980s) Pepsi had commercials and other advertising with the “Pepsi Challenge”. An “unbiased” consumer was asked to try two different colas and give their preference. Of course the on-camera participants always chose Pepsi. Perhaps it was what they truly liked or the entire thing was rigged in some way. In all honesty it doesn’t matter that much to me because I preferred Pepsi to Coke without the seeing choices of others. It does make for an interesting discussion on why we choose the things that we do.
In a given day, you have literally thousands and possibly millions of choices to make. Some of these choices are simple and probably automatic. For example “Am I going to wear clothes today?” No matter whether the answer is yes or no, it is an easy choice based on your daily life. Other choices are much more complex and require major deliberation. Choosing to go to college or the military is life-altering and for many would demand some time and attention. In the middle of the automatic and grandiose decisions are many moment to moment choices that need to be made by you. There are many people who treat these mid-level choices as though they were huge. Others put all of their choices on automatic pilot letting others decide for them. The worst scenario is that people forget that they are choosing at all.
In each moment, you have choices and some of the most important are about how you are going to feel. Believe it or not, it is a choice. If you are feeling sad, it is a choice. Perhaps there are very good reasons for you to choose that but it is your choice. By taking the physical state of your body, your mental focus of the moment and your inner dialogue, you determined the feeling that you were going to produce.
So now I put a new “Pepsi Challenge” on to you. Let’s call it the “Huryk Challenge”. Can you choose to feel good in all circumstances today? No matter what life throws at you, can you CHOOSE to feel good. You do not need to like the circumstances but you choose your feeling despite the poor situation. I challenge you.
Choose to have a great day!
Pete
Huryk Unlimited 
Pete, this is a great idea! I will absolutely take this challenge, as I believe that everyone has the ability and the responsibility to filter the things coming in from the outside world and decide how they will affect them. Attitude is everything. Thank you!
Also, fun fact that I learned from Blink by Malcolm Gladwell: the Pepsi challenge is actually skewed. Most people prefer Pepsi in that exact instance (taking one sip of Pepsi and one sip of Coke) because Pepsi is sweeter. But when they did a counter-study and had people take home a large quantity of each soda (like they would if they were actually using the products), a large majority chose Coke because Pepsi is cloyingly sweet in larger quantities (i.e. a glass of it). Unrelated to your point, but I thought you might find that interesting.
I’ve not read “Blink” yet, so I may have to check it out. Great anecdote and it makes perfect sense.