I’ve heard people say so many times…”Just decide.”
They make it sound so easy. Decide. Just decide. I think that is a rather simplistic view and one that I would like to challenge.
I agree that some decisions are easier than others. We decide things every day.
- What to eat.
- What to wear.
- Which route to take home
Those aren’t the kinds of decisions I’m talking about.
I’m talking about the bigger ones:
- Whether to leave a marriage.
- Whether to sell a house.
- Whether to move to another city.
- Whether to walk away from a job.
- Whether to start over.
Those decisions are different.
Years ago – probably 10 or 12 years ago – I remember becoming almost obsessed with the subject of deciding. I was rereading Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill and hearing over and that everything hinged on deciding.
But nobody ever explained how.
I couldn’t find a formula for how to decide. I searched and searched for an answer back them, and I never really found one.
I’ve made a lot of major decisions since then. Each time I’ve experienced a range of emotions like agony, grief, confusion, and at times despair.
I have concluded that making decisions is a process.
My process includes:
- Gathering Information.
- Weighing the pros and cons.
- Asking myself lots of questions.
- Living with the quesitons.
- Turning in over and over in my mind
- Feeling resistance.
- Feeling sadness.
- Struggling.
- Grieving.
- Wanting clarity.
- Not having clarity.
- Trying to force clarity.
Somewhere in this mix…something inside me shifts and I realize I’ve made a decision.
I’ve learned…some decisions aren’t made in a moment.
They are arrived at.
Sometimes they arrive quietly.
Sometimes they arrive loudly.
Sometimes they arrive as an answer to a question.
Sometimes they arrive as a “knowing”.
But always, always they arrive from within.
And once the decision arrives… it is done. No more agonizing. No more struggle. No more resistance.
Just done.
Maybe the reason some decisions feel so hard…is because they are not just changing our circumstances.
They are changing us…
~ Suzi