I get overwhelmed making big decisions… The classic “paralysis by analysis”… “If this then what?”… “In committing myself here, what am I sacrificing over there?”… “If I make the wrong decision now, what will my life be like 5 years down the road?”. Questions such have these have plagued me.
Recently I had time to think, or perhaps more accurately, take a reprieve from “traditional thinking”; the perpetual agonising over nuance and detail. Real thinking, not just a repetitive soap opera of the above questions.
In novel environments, I am forced to pay attention and as a by-product, examine closely other aspects of my experience, both external and internal; macro and micro.
My traditional line of thinking has me obsessed with staying on the “right path”. This “right path”, at least in my mind is one that pushes me towards potentiality, as opposed to the “life half lived”; one of my greater fears.
Yet with such a grand goal in mind, the seemingly insignificant detail of decisions seem enormously important.
Hiking, I catch myself once again spiralling into this loop.
The novelty inspires reflection and as I recount my day, it becomes apparent that I have not planned to do anything or decided on a specific course.
It began at a local coffee shop and after choking down the acrid black liquid Americans claim to be coffee, I started off towards the west. Vaguely I knew there were mountains in that direction and that perhaps I would like to see them.
This decision led to another decision, with that one rippling into the next until I find myself immersed in a picturesque location, immersed by trees, and rocks, and dirt, and clean, fresh air.
It started with a simple decision to head west. It was what was right at the time and some hours later, the valley of Salt Lake City stretches out below me.
Why then, I propose, should other decisions be any different? Why can it not be as simple as gravitating towards an incredibly broad or small course of action and then responding to the happenings of such?
On that hill top, I decided that during times of rigorous self-scrutiny; paralysis by analysis; or crudely, mental masturbation, I would simply do the next right thing. The events that follow are a by-product of one small decision made correctly.
I need not concern myself of the happenings of the future; only that I made the right decision at the time. It’s reassuring, and perhaps slightly immature to not confront the consequences of decisions until they become inescapable.
But it works for me now anyway. I figure I’ll run with it until it doesn’t. One right thing at a time.
CHANGE IS THE POINT 