Making Decisions

Have you ever found yourself waffling at a decision?  Whether it is changing jobs, buying a new car, making a loan, or jumping into a new relationship, do you find yourself second guessing yourself, wondering if you are doing the right thing?

A former boss told me many years ago that only people who never did anything didn’t get into trouble.  I have thought on that piece of wisdom many times over the last 30 years and whenever I find myself in hot water or in a difficult situation I console myself with the thought that at least I have done something.  It doesn’t mean that the decision was necessarily the correct one, but it’s better to go out on a limb once in a while than to never experience anything at all.

I feel the same way about regrets.  I am not a believer in regrets.  I think that as adults we make decisions and we have to live with the choice we made, for better or worse.  Sometimes it does mean taking a step to get out of the decision, but when you look back on the experience I think that there is always something to be learned from the decision.  If you haven’t learned anything then there is something wrong with your thinking process; at the very least you should have learned not to do it again.

When I have life altering decisions to make I will take my time about them, I weigh the pros and cons, I will talk to my friends and my mother (of course) and then I will make a decision.  Non-life altering decisions I will frequently make on the fly, without thinking too hard about them.  That is the beauty of being single, I don’t need to consult someone if I make a decision to fly to Ecuador or Cuba.  I just need to make a note to check my bank account and make sure the cats get fed.  If I need to buy a new furnace then I make the decision to go for it or postpone for another year.

So why am I writing about this?  Because I get extremely frustrated when others cannot decide whether they should urinate or get off the pot (to purify my language).  It seems to me that if you volunteer to be on a  committee you should be adept at making a decision or else get off the committee.  I would sooner watch paint dry (and you all know how truly impatient I am with that) than sit through a meeting where no one can take a decision to a conclusion.  OMG, I feel like jumping up and screaming “Just do it for C&^%$ sake” but I am only paid to take minutes of the meeting.  Sitting on the sidelines of meetings like that make me close to insane.  I sometimes feel like saying something like “go on, live on the edge, decide to order in pizza instead of sandwiches” but I refrain.

One of these days though, I just may make the decision for them.  I will just sneak it into the meeting minutes and say “hey, I just wrote down what you said” . . . they may just believe me.