FollowOften people will ask us, how we were able to come to a decision, how we came to a place to a move forward on that decision, how we found the courage and the strength to make it and then stick to it, and how in the end, we decided on that way and not another. We have had some adventures along the way, and each time, we have been asked, how did you come to your decision?
I have always been surprised by that question, as though we have been able to make decisions when others have not, or that our decisions have somehow been more difficult, tougher, and somehow more courageous. But I don’t agree. Because the fact of the matter is, that all those decisions that you have been sitting on, not quite able to make, needing more time to think about, have in fact left the space wide open for others to be made in their place. Every single time you think you are not making a decision, you are in fact deciding on something else.
So, when you choose the salad, you leave all the other menu items behind. When you choose the forest, you don’t choose the beach. When you choose to work, you don’t choose to spend time with family, at the movies, on a walk. When you choose to stay in that house, you choose not to move down the street, or across the country. We make decisions, every minute of the day, many without giving it much thought, about what it means, how it will feel, what impact it will have, what difference it will make.
We tell ourselves that we are putting off the big decisions, mulling them over, giving them time, weighing our options, so that our decision will be well informed, meaningful, and right. When in fact we are just delaying time, staying put, choosing what we have and know, instead of what we haven’t done, can’t see, don’t know for sure. So while we wait to make what we feel are the bigger, life changing decisions, we are living our lives, with the small decisions, the ones we don’t think matter.
All the while, time is marching on, lives are being lived, and those very decisions are in fact moving us forward little by little, day by day, year by year. This is your life, created by those decisions you don’t think you are making.
Maybe we should be less concerned about the big looming decision we can’t seem to make, and more concerned about the 25 mindless ones we just made… indecision is a decision!
