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“What do I always say about hard choices?” —Paul (Harrison Ford)
“You don’t know if your choice is right or wrong until you make it.” – Gabby (Jessica Williams)
—from episode #5, season 3, shrink
One person’s difficult decision is another person’s easy choice.
Choices happen all the time in life – what to buy at the grocery store, what book to read, when to go to bed, when to get out of bed. We make decisions so often in life, we forget that we are making choices sometimes. And in some cases, it’s a good thing we don’t think twice, because we’d be paralyzed. Simple choices give our lives ease and stability. However, knowing which decisions to focus on determines the quality of life we will live from today to our tomorrow.
The advice in the quote above resonated with me when I first heard it because I recognized its truth. There is a difference between a difficult decision and an easy choice that is difficult to make.
A difficult decision doesn’t tell you, or bring a clear answer about what will be best for your lifestyle because the outcome of that decision is ambiguous and its implications extend into the future, although there are many variables that we simply cannot know, whether you will enjoy your lunch (for example, deciding what to order). Hard because we have to choose before we know, and hard because our way of life has no precedent
A simple choice that is hard to make brings a clear answer, but we may hesitate to make it because either we don’t want to (a second helping of cheesecake after an already satisfying main meal) or it won’t be what anyone else wants to hear (ending a relationship that doesn’t make us happy or interest us or isn’t enough in common). We know what we have to do, we may not want to do it. Simple because the choice is clear, but hard at the moment.
Difficult decisions will change your life moving forward.
That’s good news.
If we want our life now, just as it is now, the hard choices won’t be hard because we’ll always be making the same decisions. We tend to stick to the same routines and engage in the same way out of habit rather than conscious awareness. But in doing so, we are not really fully present. We are not dancing with life; We have become a robot that stays in the same place. And just as a robot that runs into a wall tries to walk through the wall instead of exploring what’s around it to get past it, that’s a tough decision—to do something we haven’t done to see what we can discover.
Because hard decisions will change your life, they are scary. But every difficult decision we make and after making it, we realize that it was the right decision for our life journey, we strengthen our confidence, even when it is difficult, which is the best. This does not mean that we make decisions quickly. In fact, we will probably learn to take our time, and realize that from one day to the next, our inclinations between different decisions will vary based on different factors. But over time, these tendencies become less and less as we become calmer and rest in the clarity of knowing ourselves.
Let me share with you a few decisions that were difficult at the time, but now seem glaringly obvious as the right decisions for my life journey: ending a marriage (when I was 20), whether or not to welcome Norman into my life, moving to Bend, retiring from teaching and writing full-time, buying Le Papillon, welcoming him into my life.
For longtime TSLL readers, you know that each of these decisions was the right one for me, and I cheer myself for making each decision at the time. Oh my goodness! At that time, I hesitated, I pondered, I weighed pros and cons because I knew each of them would change the course of my life.
However, and here’s the good news, and you’ll build confidence when it happens. The moment you decide, that you are fully committed – you look into the eyes of your soon-to-be ex-fiancé and say, this is not happening, your body, your being feels a lightness, a new sense of hope and excitement that was waiting to be released if only you had the courage to make the best decision for you. But it didn’t say you want to. You had to get up the courage to practice it.
I can remember when I first saw Norman as a wee, tiny, bouncy 11-week-old puppy. Yes, the right decision was made, and any doubts are cleared. Everything that happened to him in my life from that moment on was visionary, and I thank my wise man for making the decision without hesitation. Oscar’s life, Nell’s life, and my own were all beneficiaries of Norman’s presence.
With each of the examples I shared above, two of which I wrote a book about – Le Papillon and Retirement from Teaching, when I don’t want to explain to myself why they were difficult at first, but are actually the right ones for me, each example shows why we can’t know the answer before we decide. Such a lifestyle has never existed before. Your life has never been lived before, so when you’re presented with a difficult decision, grow grateful for the opportunity. Your life is going to change one way or another, and if you’ve done the homework to know yourself, you’ll know what the right decision is, because there is a right answer.
Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Less Traveled, is a poem about how our lives will turn out one way or another based on the decisions we make, but the truth is, alignment with our true selves determines the quality of our lives. Aligning our lives doesn’t need to be the ‘less traveled’ path, but it can be. Only you can know it for yourself.
Tough choices are a privilege, as the great and streak-breaking tennis player Billie Jean King quotes, “Pressure is a privilege.” Hard choices involve stress, but it’s a temporary stress, intense stress as they rightly define it. And acute stress is helpful in chronic reversal.
And finally, be aware that hard choices will continue to come in your life as long as you live fully. This is not something to beg for. Once we correct our mindsets about why difficult decisions are made, we have a chance. Each of these opportunities indicates that we have grown enough to present the choice to us. It is a privilege. See it that way, and you bring a calmness to your being that helps you come to the clarity you need to make the decisions that are right for you.
You got this. And I’m right there with you, navigating my own difficult decisions. We can do it. 😌 Oh, and enjoy a chocolate truffle every once in a while. Not a difficult choice, but perhaps a difficult one because you are trying to decide which flavor to choose 😉
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