Here’s something I wrote several years ago while facing the most difficult decision of my life. I felt crushed by the burden of choosing between two alternatives that seemed equally horrible at the time. So I sat and scribbled this on a yellow legal pad. It seemed to flow like a Socratic dialogue, building from my own narrow circumstances to a larger and more comprehensive theory of how to live.
Is this applicable to every choice one might face? No. I’m not sure I would want Charles Manson or Osama bin Laden following this decision-making process. But it helped give me the courage to decide what I needed to decide.
- People will always give you differing opinions on which choice you should make.
- People will always give you opposing opinions about what choice you should make.
- There are always convincing arguments for more than one choice.
- You will never completely know if you made the right choice.
- Someone will always feel you made the wrong choice.
- Some people may hate you or attribute bad motives to you for whatever choice you make.
- You will often want to straddle the fence and avoid making a choice, but that’s usually not possible.
- Not all choices have a “right” or “wrong” answer.
- Choosing enables you to live the life that you want.
- Any choice can be “right” or “wrong” depending how you treat them.
- What you choose is not as important as how you choose and what you do with your choice.
- You can live with any choice you make.
- You can take responsibility for any choice you make.
- Nobody but you can completely know what to choose.
- Making a choice is an act of will that shapes your life to your dimensions.
- Everyone inevitably makes “wrong” choices sometimes, and that’s okay.
- You are the choices you make in life.
- Your future is not set in stone, it is determined by the choices you make.
‘Nuff said.