How we think about choices can help us or hinder us in making them. I suspect that most of us carry around, in the backs of our minds, an inappropriate model for decision making that actually gets in our way and trips us up.
Many of us approach decisions as we would a True-False Test - there's a right answer and a wrong one. Take the new job, or stay in the old job. Move across the country, or remain where we are. True, or False. The difference is that we haven't previously learned in any sort of class which is which, and so we're in the old dreaded situation of guessing.
Sometimes, the Multiple Choice exam question might seem to be a more accurate rendering of how we think: There are many options for how I could approach my work or my life right now, and only one of them is best. Depending on the circumstances and the options, this can seem to capture a decision situation better than the True-False. But normally, it still puts on us a pressure that's totally unnecessary.
Philosopher Ruth Chang has an interesting Op Ed in the New York Times relevant to this. She says we often approach life decisions as a maximizing gain, minimizing loss scenario, and assume that if we could just get at the right facts out there in the world, the decision would be made for us. And she suggests that this isn't so. She counsels instead that when the options are at least "on a par" - there's no obvious best path forward, and we could live with either - we ought to ask what we could best commit ourselves to. It isn't a matter of guessing, but of commitment.
My suggestion is this. Decision making is less like an exam and more like an art. Every choice we make is a stroke on the canvas, a chip in the marble, a move in the dance. It's not necessarily a matter of True-False, or of picking The One Right Answer. It's a matter of "What's the next move we can feel really good about making?" And that aligns with Ruth Chang's consideration of commitment. What do you want? What can you commit to best?
When you think like that, you don't worry so much about "getting it wrong" and making a big mistake. Your thinking is more positive than protective, more about wants than about wariness. And that can liberate you to be the artist that you, deep down, are capable of being.
