DECISIONS, DECISIONS, DECISIONS

Decision-making is governed by intellect, emotions, morals and common sense, as well as a few other determinants.

To revisit the subject of contemplation explored in (Dec. 2014) post: (Are We Too Busy to Think?) I piggybacked off 95.5/WPLJ host Bill Ayres’s recent Sunday night call-in radio show, which featured the topic of decisions.

A caller discussed listening to the inner voice in our heads that we don’t always heed. Not when it cautions us to grab our umbrellas when we’re convinced it won’t rain before we returm.

No, Ayres wanted to focus on the really important, big decisions in life. We know right from wrong but when it comes to basic decisions, when there’s two ways to go about something that could cause us to face a consequential dilemma no matter which one we decide upon — those require solid decisiveness.

Sometimes we don’t know how to make decisions, what to weigh or how much weight to give each pro or con. Such situations steer some people to therapy.

There is a reason why youth is wasted on the young. Decisions can be black , white or gray for them. The middle or gray area is where it can get tricky, though, even if contemplated. People do make rash decisions without looking at all the angles, akin to leaping into a pool before checking to see if there’s water in it.

They can make those unwise critical decisions while they’re still able to rebound, whereas someone older might not have the same opportunity or resiliency. The younger you are the freer you are to make these and the better chance you have to “fix” them.

The problems bad decisions create can be repaired more expeditiously and likely more fully. Many times that’s not an option for a more mature adult, who has to make much wiser decisions and not expect to be able to easily correct unwise ones. That’s why wisdom isn’t wasted on older adults.

A single female neighbor “of a certain age,” as Wendy Williams often refers, moved cross-country to be with a guy, who unbeknowst to her had another woman. A Big foolish decision, though fixable, and a major setback. She’d sold her home and put her furniture in storage.

You may be too close to a situation to truly see it clearly a lot of the time. We’ve all no doubt, been guilty of that. For example, I reminded a cousin of the obvious when she told me her sister had informed her that her fiancé was cheating.

Not one to ever give advice I wouldn’t follow myself, I just recounted a scenario wherein the same sibling’s mate had purportedly strayed and she didn’t leave. Yet, she was adamant that she should.

Why hadn’t her sister done what she was urging her to do? The final decision was hers, not mine or her sister’s. Life’s decisions are the most difficult, and  good or bad, often have repercussions. We might not understand them when they arise, since they may potentially be far-reaching, affecting the present and the future.

The best measures of well-made decisions, I think are those you:

1)                  don’t regret

2)                  wouldn’t go back and change if you could

3)                  don’t suffer any negative lingering affects from and

4)                  believe you made the best decision at the time

They’re still never 100%. We second-guess ourselves and our decisions. It makes us human. You learn from decisions that might not have turned out as you would’ve hoped, and hopefully, make better decisions going forward.