I like to think of myself as a logical person most of the time, but I’m not one.
Instead of making rational, practical choices which lead to good decisions and outcomes, I make it messy.
I overthink and make irrational decisions at times, simply because I don’t keep things simple.
Riddle me this; Have you ever said yes to going to a certain restaurant that your friend suggested to avoid arguing?
Have you ever said yes to a decision that you did not agree with but felt would hurt the feelings of the other person, so you did not argue?
Being a pushover, not knowing how to say no, making bad decisions, it’s all interconnected.
Today, while living inside the comfort of my home, I was feeling miserable. It happens whenever I have any important decision to make.
Looking back, in the grand scheme of things, it was not a situation that I needed to stress so much over, but just had to think clearly and logically to arrive at a practical decision. But what did I end up doing?
Procrastinating, not focusing on whatever work I had to do or even snapping at people who dared to ask me a simple question about my lunch. I kept replaying scenarios in my head based on whatever choice I would make and gauging how I felt about it. I was stressed and unfocused. Questions like “How would I cope up with a decision not well-made?”, “What would people who are affected by the decision think of it?” kept running in my mind.
Making an important decision is a process in itself. You keep overthinking the situation with different choices that you made in your head and keep reliving every outcome while judging how you would feel in each of them. And then you decide. After torturing myself by doing this repeatedly and building it into a toxic cycle, I realized there is no end to it. I can either make a decision and stick to it, while owning up to its consequences or I can keep living in the loop until the deadline gets done and still get nowhere.
What finally helped me was going for a walk outside to clear my brain and venting out whatever I was grappling with to a trusted friend.
Throughout all this process, I realized I was trying to look for someone to make the decision for me. To absolve me of the process of choosing between option ‘A’ or ‘B’. To blame it on someone if it all went wrong. But that way I would never be able to take ownership of my actions.
Here’s the thing. We can’t predict the future. We don’t know what’s going to happen. Any decision, be it business or personal that we take, will have its consequences. We can map a trajectory and try to predict what may happen based on certain constant factors, but there are always variables. So, it’s not something we can know with 100% accuracy. So, what do we do in such a situation?
The only thing left to do is to weigh the pros and cons and make a decision and stick to it. Ask yourself if you are comfortable living with the consequences of the decision you are making. Ask yourself if you would regret not going with the other option. Even if it all goes bad, did you at least have the satisfaction of knowing that you made the best choice you could with the information you had at that point of time?
One more realization I had throughout this whole process —
Feeling sad after making a decision does not mean it was the wrong decision.
It’s merely being aware of how you feel about the choice you made.
Anyway, that’s about it. This writeup was a bit messy and all over the place, quite like today’s topic. So, please take any advice written here with a grain of salt.
P.S. Here’s something you may or may not like.
