Sometimes I marvel at how a seemingly insignificant past decision ultimately affects my life. Yet I continue to make spontaneous choices year after year without much thought because, most of the time, I can’t predict if or how it might change my path. I suspect most of you act as I do – only occasionally stopping to think about a particular decision after an unexpected consequence occurs.
But now and then we each face a crossroads – a high stakes decision we know will significantly impact the direction of our life. We sweat, deliberate, wring our hands, seek advice, and still never reach clarity before pulling the trigger. It’s a sickening feeling, and I’m facing one right now.
This isn’t the time or place to discuss the circumstances of my present dilemma, but they aren’t relevant to the point of this post anyway. So what is my point, you ask?
Well, it’s not so much a point as it is a rhetorical question: If you realize the outcome of any decision can greatly alter one’s life, does it make sense to ascribe so much angst to one decision over any other? In other words, does seeing the fork ahead actually make that choice more fraught with consequence than other less obvious ones?
I’d like to believe most decisions have relatively equal weight in the grand scheme of life, but perhaps I’m merely trying to persuade myself of this logic in order to minimize my own anxiety regarding the fork in my road. Sadly, it’s not really working. Maybe my only solace is knowing that, no matter which choice I make, I will never know with certainty whether or not it was the right choice (since I can’t know how the path not taken would have turned out). So…no regrets…just pull the ripcord and see what happens…
How do you handle “tough” decisions? I’m all ears!
xo-jamie
