Sometimes it is just fuzzy. What you should do next that is. It’s not clear what’s the next right step, which presents a problem if you want to do the right or perfect thing.
And there is this fantasy that for each decision, for each day, for each life there are perfect answers, and the best next steps. We want to take the next right or perfect step. Not being clear but being fuzzy on what that is leads us to feel we are always just a little bit wrong, always failing to measure up to the standard. This wasn’t clear before we started and isn’t even clear once we act, but often we feel we missed it. Making choices is hard for me at times. My wife would agree. When it comes to whether to go to one restaurant or the other, I may hesitate to decide. What to do with an open afternoon may present me with too many choices and I’m tempted to do nothing. I can fear making the wrong decision or desire to avoid offending others so much that I just let others make the choices.
In most situations there are better steps, and there are worse steps. For instance, when you wake in the morning you will get more done if you get out of bed than if you stay there. You will have more energy if you eat breakfast than if you don’t. When you have a chance to be nice or cruel, it is better for everybody if you are nice. It seems pretty evident that some choices are healthier, for you and others that you impact. But better is not necessarily best and best may not be perfect. An unseen pressure can expect the best and even hope for perfect.
As an old preacher once said, when there are two or more reasonable choices, just pick one, God will bless you whichever way you go. This saying is opposite of the idea that there is just one way you should choose; that there is only one way that is the will of God for your life. We can fear that there is just one choice that will go along the path that will lead to complete happiness, so if you mess up this decision here, it’s all shot to…umm. Then you may as well give up because you will be carried away by the winds of misfortune, brought on by this one wrong decision.
People do sometimes make crucial bad choices that send their lives in a bad trajectory. But often, they have made many poor choices again and again, not just one thing sent them into a spiral. Selfishness, ignoring good advice, addictive behavior don’t bring success. When poor choices become a pattern, bad things result. Of course, many people live in really hard circumstances, that they didn’t choose.
What I’m talking about instead, is our fear of making choices when the options are all moral, all reasonable, though they will have different outcomes. Like a graduating high schooler applying over and over to colleges but refusing to decide where to go. If college is to be attended, one has to be chosen. That leaves all the other options closed. You can’t go to multiple colleges at once, you have to pick one. It’s also true of dating to find the right one and making a big purchase. Looking at the options can’t go on forever, you have to pick one.
“Closing options” may be our problem. We would rather not close any options. Just keep them all open because one might be better than the others, or you can fantasize that you can have them all. People say, “You can have it all”! Then the smart aleck answer is, “if you had it all what would you do with it?” Deep down we know we can’t have everything. When it comes to stuff, we don’t have the money to buy it all or places to put it. When it comes to experiences, we don’t have energy or time to do them all. We must make choices; we must live as the limited human beings that we are.
Settle in for a moment and meditate on this. Relax and let your body be comfortable but alert. Let go any tension you notice as best you can. Notice sounds, feelings of touch, smells, and sights. Don’t try to change things, just settle in to your own body.
Let a decision come to mind, maybe a big one, maybe a small one, maybe a series of decisions you made. Is decision making easy or hard for you? Do you seek out the perfect or fear making the wrong decisions? Feel your imperfection, your inability to know that each decision is the right one. Accept that you are a fallible human being. Does this stress you? Can you find some comfort that you make the best decisions with the information you have, and if they are not perfect, it’s okay? You can try again, you may be able to repair any damage done. You can also celebrate when things work out. You didn’t know in advance that they would! Consider the option of accepting yourself through the daily process of making thousands of decisions. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt that you are doing the best you can.
