Life was unfair to her.

Her dreams of a perfect world were shattered when a dragon invaded her space and took something that did not belong to him. For years she looked for a knight on a white stallion to charge forth and rescue her and slay all the dragons in her world. She longed for someone to appear who could find all the broken, missing pieces and make them fit together again. Floating aimlessly in a sea of insanity, she longed for her life to make sense.

As wounded people are apt to do, she dreamed of living in a remote castle surrounded by a moat where she would be protected from all the fire-breathing dragons in the kingdom. It would be a safe place to live and one that would shield her from other shattering experiences in life.

The knight never came. She never found the castle. The shattered pieces of her life remained scattered and the dragon from the past would not go away. In fact, more dragons came after him.

All the dragons in her life seemed to have the same purpose. They threatened to blow out the dim flame of hope, fairness and decency that flickered deep within. Her dream of an immaculate world was tainted as the grimy footprints of an ugly dragon smudged the landscape of her previously chaise life.

When I met her she was dangerously close to becoming a dragon herself because dragons perpetuate other dragons through the people they violate creating a vicious cycle. This explains why there are more dragons flourishing in the forest than free people who build castles in the mountains.

When the world of our dreams and the world of reality collide, the result is shattered dreams, resentment and a sense of helplessness that eventually gives way to the poison of bitterness. The question is, "What do you do with the fragmented pieces of a shattered life?" Better yet, "What do you do with the dragons who invade your world?" How does a romantic live in a real world? By the term romantic, I mean a mind-set, an outlook, a perspective that tends to be adventurous in nature and is definitely idealistic in its approach to the way life is suppose to be and how problems are solved. Romanticism is a paradigm. It is a pair of glasses through which a person views the world.

The good news is that when your dream of a perfect world is shattered, you can live in a world that has broken pieces and old dragons but you must make some choices along the way. You can choose to be bitter and you can be determined to become better. The outcome is a result of your choice. Joseph Epstein in his book Ambition: The Secret Passion writes: "...we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or adrift. But no matter how indifferently the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed".

The bottom line is this...we make our choices and our choices make us. You choose to become a dragon or you choose to live as a free person in the kingdom. Choices swing on the hinge of opportunity so when a dragon invades your space, you are faced with the opportunity to make a choice.

The dragons in life may steal some things from you, making you feel violated. They may even inflict pain so that you hurt. They may breath intimidating fire so that you cringe. They are still dragons and you are still free. You can choose to live in the kingdom as one who is free, dream big dreams and pursue those dreams until they become reality or you can become another dragon.