Indecisive? You’re not alone.
Decisions are terrifying.
First off, I know that my freedom to make my own decisions, live the life I want to live, and be the person I want to be is one of the greatest gifts I could ever receive. I’m sure I could never fully comprehend how lucky I am to live in a country where I have the capacity to choose my own future, and have no one tell me what to do.
So I feel pretty guilty when I’m on the floor for the fourth time in the month of May begging my mother to just tell me where I should go to university.
This situation will be painfully familiar to if you’re also one of the unfortunate souls who suffers from obsessive indecisiveness. If you are, you run from decisions faster than you run from your Grade 12 Advanced Functions exam mark. Any decision you make is not just a decision; it’s a confrontation of your inner-self. One does not simply “consider all the options” or “think about the alternatives.” By the time we’re done considering, the counter-argument to the counter-argument of the alternative possibility to the primary choices has been so considered that your brain has become a little pile of putty that throbs should anyone bring up the issue.
To be fair, there’s often extensive pressure on the decisions we make. We’re told our choices define who we are—and I have never heard anything more terrifying. If that’s the case, what kind of person do I want to be? Am I so childish, so 90s as to be a ketchup on my hotdog kind of person? Do I even have the prerequisite knowledge to venture into the realm of mustards? Am I pretentious if I pick Dijon? Am I losing my childhood if I don’t pick French’s? All these questions are crucial to the definition of my very character! Needless to say, when all of this runs through your mind within five seconds of someone asking you what you’d like on your hotdog, you tend to question just how lucky you are to have these decisions to make. I’d say that the only upside to being one of us mind bogglingly indecisive people is that we become some of the world’s most skilled procrastinators: we do anything to avoid the decision.
Unfortunately, the fact that we’re all at university means that we indecisive people, along with everyone else, have already been forced to confront far more serious decisions than hotdog toppings. I’d say the most terrifying time in my life was when I realized I was now responsible for my own future. I had to decide between three universities I really liked, each of which several of my closest friends were going to. No longer was my daily routine decided for me by school and parents, and no longer was my future and my purpose in life some distant problem that I’d have to deal with when the fun part of my life ended. That time was now. More importantly, for the first time I didn’t have my parents to make the decision for what’s right for me. Sure, they’d provide me with information about the universities, guidance from their own experience, and comfort when I was having my third anxiety attack of the week. But at no point did they tell me what they thought was right. At the time, I resented them for it. I felt abandoned, incapable, and, of course, completely terrified. But, as is the case most of the time, when I reflecton it now I realize that was the best thing my parents ever did for me.
The truth is, the freedom to choose is wonderful. But no matter who you are, decisions are often incredibly difficult. We do have to confront parts of ourselves we don’t often want to consider, and we do have to look at the bigger picture of our lives and our purposes in ways that often scare us. Decisions make us uncomfortable—but as much as people like me hate to admit it, it’s in the face of these decisions and in the midst of this discomfort that we grow into our full selves more than at any other time in our lives.
The moment I realized I had grown up was not when I turned 18 or got my driver’s license, but after I made the decision to come to a university I was petrified to go to. The decision took me a long time: I would stress about it, toss and turn, and I often felt hopeless and completely lost. How could I be trusted with such an important decision? But after I made that decision, though it was hard and it hurt me and my heart, I knew I had accomplished something. I knew that there was a strength in me I hadn’t realized before: I not only had the capacity to make that crucial decision, but to also deal with the consequences. I realized that I had the capacity to discern right from wrong, and even the foresight to know what would be truly right and benefit me most profoundly in the long run—at least, to the best of my ability. I realized I had this ability because I was put in a situation where I had no choice but to do so. If I didn’t, I knew the consequences would be far worse. I used my best judgement, and found a wisdom in myself I didn’t know I was there, all because I was forced to confront the thing I feared the most. That’s how you learn to find strength and wisdom in yourself, and you learn your true amazing abilities: by being put in situations where you have to. Even if the decision doesn’t pan out like you planned, all you can do is use the information you have to make the best decision possible. Often, your foresight is better than you think.
Despite being terrified at the time the decision was made, when the moment finally came months later for my parents to say a tearful goodbye and drive away in our family car without me, I realized that my life was my own to live. Only now, on my own and facing the world I feared as a kid, am I fully Megan White. Never before did I have complete control over what I was going to do each day of the week. I could choose what courses I wanted take, what job I wanted to have, what purpose I wanted my life to be remembered by—and all I had to do was choose to. No longer would my parents decide what I did on the weekends, or my school dictate my daily routine. I could choose to work towards what I knew to be the most important for my own life, and let go of anything that wasn’t making me a better person. I could choose, from my course selection to what I ate for breakfast, exactly the person I wanted to be. For the first time in my life, I felt I could be—in every aspect of my existence—the Megan White I wanted to be. I could choose to be a perky involved extrovert; I could choose to be a crafty homebody; I could choose to be the provider of advice and comfort for anyone who was in need. Suddenly my ability to choose was my greatest power—and honestly, as a result, I’ve grown and am probably more profoundly happy than I’ve ever been.
Moreover, since I made the huge decision to come to Western, I’ve realized the importance of the little decisions: how we choose each and every day, how we want to live our lives, our mindset and, as much as it’s hard to hear, our own emotions. You have the strength within you, even if you don’t see it right now, to choose to be happy. People get emotional, people get upset over little things and have severe emotional reactions. But when you make big decisions and confront the bigger picture, you’ll find that the little problems of your day are exactly what they are: little. You’ll find the little problems don’t bother you as much. Ultimately, it is your choice to confront the bigger picture or not. But if you truly want to be happy, it’s going to be worth forcing yourself to think about your life and your purpose in the bigger more serious way we’re often lenient to do, to ultimately gain that happiness you keep saying you want.
Most important of all, you have the capacity to do all of this. You know how to make the right choices: you know in your heart and in your mind what will make you healthy and what won’t. You can be the person you’ve admired from your childhood to this day. It’s not a matter of not being a good or healthy person or not knowing exactly what to do: it’s a matter of being conscious. Wake yourself up from the sleep of your own habits. What do you do each day that makes you happy and your life better? What are the things that don’t? Really consider this – down to the smallest detail, like what the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning or how often you brush your teeth. As soon as you become conscious of your habits and yourself, that’s when you realize your power to choose—the power to choose a better life and the power to choose a better you.
Your ability to choose your own life is daunting. But trust me when I say you are literally overflowing with the strength you saw in your greatest heroes to be the person you want to be. The human mind is an incredible thing—your human mind is an incredible, capable thing. You can be the person you want to be, because you can choose the life you want and —with determination—you can live it to the fullest.