Monday, February 7, 2011

Day 5 - Decisions, Decisions

Decisions were always difficult for me growing up. In fact they still are at times. Whereas some people are spontaneous and fly by the seat of their pants kind of people, I have never been like that. I spend a lot of time weighing out the pros and cons of my decisions and have even gotten so stuck in an effort to make the right decision, that I was afraid to even make one at all.


I can look back to my childhood and see that at times, I didn't feel much freedom to make my own decisions. I would either ask, or be given a point-of-view from my parents, teachers, mentors or friends and would just go with whatever they said, assuming that whatever they told me was far better than what I could come up on my own. But was it?

I became a Christian in college and suddenly I had to juggle another point-of-view: God's. Decision-making became easier in some ways because I desired to make wise decision that correlated with scripture but at the same time, I still didn't feel like I was afforded an opportunity to really figure out for myself what I wanted. Which also begs the question... does God always point us in the direction He wants us to go or does He allow us to make our own choices sometimes? Another topic for another day (but in my estimation the answer is both).

Here is what I've learned though: For the most part, decisions are not permanent and mistakes are okay. So breathe a sigh of relief! If you take a job one day that doesn't turn out to be the right one, you can get another. If you decide to go back to school to earn a degree you don't end up using after all, it's not the end of the world. Yes, obviously there may be some loss and/or sacrifice when we make different decisions, but that loss can usually be recovered. And if not, you can choose to focus on what you learned from the situation rather than remaining stuck in a pool of regret. I don't mean to sound nonchalant and unfeeling about this stuff. But the reality is, often times we make things out to be bigger and more life threatening than they are.

A quick disclaimer - I am not talking about decisions that genuinely are life and death. I am also not talking about decisions like when to have a baby, who to marry or other decisions that will 100% have a profound impact on the course of your life. I am talking about small to medium sized decisions that cause many people a lot more stress than necessary. (Example - in high school one of my friends and I had a weekly lunch date. We would sit in the car in front of my parent's house for upwards of 30 minutes sometimes trying to decide if we wanted Mexican or Italian)!

So how are you at making decisions? Do you spend an exorbitant amount of time becoming paralyzed in fear over the idea? Or are you overly spontaneous? How do you make decisions effectively? Feel free to comment below.

2 comments:

  1. I'm usually very spontaneous about my decisions... which is sometimes to my detriment.

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  2. I tend to be the opposite... also to my detriment. :)

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