Making Choices
January 30, 2006 @ 9:08 pm
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.
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Comments
David,
Came across your list after random googling in a time of crisis. Thank you, it helped me a lot.
I’m really glad to know this helped you, Fredrik. I think this is the most important thing I’ve learned in my adult life so far, and I’m happy if it helps someone else get through their own crises.
What do you think is more important in making life choices; emotion or motivation?
anna: Not sure how to answer that one. I generally tend to think that emotions are unreliable. That doesn’t mean they’re useless in making decisions, but they’re low on the totem pole. As for motivation, I suppose it depends what’s inspiring your motivations. You can have motivations that are inspired by lust, or fear, or greed, and those aren’t always the motivations you should follow.