“We don’t know if a choice is wise or wrong until we’ve lived through it. We can never really know where a choice will take us, although we can feel its direction.”
– Sarah Ban Breathach, something else; Excavating your authentic self
When it comes to making major decisions in life, I tend to waver back and forth.
I’m the type of person who tries to look at ALL angles. I write down all the pros and cons that come to mind. I ask people for their advice. I do the research. I rack my brain trying to think of all the things that could go wrong. But, of course, trying to determine all the possible things that could go wrong, or right, is technically impossible… because we don’t yet know what we don’t know!
Sure, we can anticipate the obvious probable results, if we choose a certain course of action. But there’s just no way we can anticipate all the outcomes because there are, like it or not, other variables that probably aren’t even on our radar yet.
In other words, we do not live in a vacuum.
I’ve been brooding over a major life decision for quite some time, so when I was reading the February 2017 issue of O Magazine, an article caught my eye. It was about the different types of decision makers that exist. So I took the little quiz and it turned out that I am “The Waffler”. I laughed out loud…yes!
Here is the description of The Waffler:
“You’re a thoughtful person who considers all angles… but now you’re overanalyzing, you’re so busy you can’t jump. The more time you spend thinking about what you should do, the less capable you are of doing anything at all.”
YEAH!
Sometimes I think so much that I feel myself in a big fat corner, immobilized by indecision and terrified of making the WRONG decision. So I stopped making ANY decision…which of course is still a decision, but not a particularly proactive one.
In terms of advising us Wafflers on how to get out of the pan of indecision, the article suggested the following: “Take a gut test. Write down your choices on a separate piece of paper and fold them into squares, then toss them up in the air and collect them.” the one that falls closest. When you read what’s inside, check your physical reaction. Are you holding your breath or sighing in relief? Do you feel lighter or heavier? Let your answer be your guide.”
So that’s exactly what I did, and you know what? She Helped A Little! And I think I know why.
This strategy is similar to a nice little coffee table book I have called Carol Bolt’s The Book of Answers. A dear friend gave it to me years ago. It is literally an answer book, with each page having a single “answer”.
So what you do is hold the book, close your eyes, ask yourself a closed-ended question (eg, “Is the job I’m applying for the right one?”), then open the book to what feels like the right page. correct, open your eyes and your pa… there is your answer!
Here are some sample responses:
“That’s out of your control”
“Don’t ignore the obvious”
“Make a list of why not”
“You’re Too Close to See”
“You will discover everything you need to know”
Kids love it!
Now of course the book doesn’t really have THE answer to our questions. It simply has an answer, and it’s up to us to see how that answer makes us feel. And that, I discovered, can actually be very helpful, similar to the idea of tossing the pieces of paper into the air and choosing one at random.
If I ask the book a question and like the answer I get, then that tells me I might be on the right track. If I DON’T LIKE the answer I get, and in fact am a little annoyed by the audacity of the Universe to suggest such a thing, that’s also telling in terms of helping me figure out what I don’t want.
“There comes a time when we are not allowed to know.”
-Judith Viorst
In the end, a decision must be made, even if it is the decision to do nothing at all. But what I’ve also come to realize over the years is that, for me, verbiage can be an important part of the decision-making process.
Maybe we hesitate when we know we have to make a change, but we’re not quite sure what or when…possibly because there are other factors and forces at play that we have no control over?
Maybe other things have to line up first and then when everything else is in place it’s time to make our move, and, low and behold, we DO know what to do and when.
In other words, maybe the waffling process has helped prepare us so that we can make the right choice when the right time to make it comes?
Food for thought.
