The Decision Strategist

In life many of our decisions are very hard to make, and we never know whether a different choice would have turned out better. This being the one month anniversary of The Decision Strategist, and in the spirit of sharing, here are the 5 hardest decisions of my life, what made them hard, why I made the decision I did, and whether I would change it if I could (in chronological order and with some details removed to protect privacy).

1. When I was roughly six years old I was asked by an important adult in my life whether or not he had done the action he was accused of. I lied and responded “No.” I was small and afraid, and in the decision of whether to stand up for what I knew to be true I yielded to that fear. I don’t blame my younger self for that decision, but if I could go back and change it, I would. It paved the way for making the easier, rather than the right, decision. I’m still struggling to correct that tendency today.
2. At approximately twelve years old, I shot a robin with a BB gun on a dare from my older brother. He thought I would miss, and I could have refused. I was convinced the forest animals were going to rise up and kill me in my sleep. They didn’t, but of course I would still change this if I could.
3. I fought with my Aikido teacher and made the (so far permanent) decision to stop training. I still wrestle with this decision all the time. If I could go back, I would still stop, but I would talk to my teacher and discuss why instead of just disappearing. I’ve talked about metaphors in How to Fight Advertising, and Aikido was definitely a big part of my metaphor for my self. I’ll probably start it again because without it something is missing.
4. Taking a new job in a new city is always a tough decision. I took a research job in Albuquerque even though my memories of Albuquerque were less than pleasant. I had a great opportunity in Massachusetts at the same time, and moving to Albuquerque meant leaving all of my friends behind, but the research job was more of a career and had much better benefits, and seemed like solid interesting work, so I took it. This is one of those decisions where either choice probably would have turned out pretty well, but I’m happy I chose to return to New Mexico.
5. I’ve had multiple micro-tears in my rotator cuffs as a result of playing Ultimate Frisbee. After the last one I decided that it just wasn’t worth it. It’s been about a year and I wouldn’t change the decision to stop playing, but I probably will in the future when I find a team I really get along with.

What’s interesting about all of these decisions is the impact they’ve had on me today. Much of my pondering is dedicated to whether my actions have been ‘true’ enough, an aspect that is directly related to hard decision number one. Perhaps I wouldn’t change any decision even if I could; who knows whether I would have learned the same lessons otherwise.

The other thing that really strikes me about this list is how much of an influence the social and environmental aspects of a situation have on what I chose to do. I’m not trying to abdicate responsibility for my actions, but I think that our decisions are much more strongly influenced by social factors that we allow for.

I’ve been talking mostly about problems and decisions that I’m facing, but I’d like to also include problems and decisions that my readers are facing. If you’d like to send me a top five list, or even just a few that you are facing now, I’ll talk about it in future posts.

-zot

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 9:00 am and is filed under Decision Making, Human Error.