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Making a decision shouldn’t be so hard, should it? It’s like a true or false question, you’re either doing something or you’re not. There is no go-between.

But then, if only life was that simple. Decision-making is not black and white. There are so many circumstances that surround whatever choices you have to make, your experiences will also play a key role in this. And then, we also have to factor in your expectations. Sometimes, if your expectations are high, you can decide to go ahead with something, and if not, you simply decide to do away with the idea altogether.

When it comes to decision-making, the line that separates the “Yes” and the “No” is blurred. You can’t really tell where one starts and where it ends. There is also that gray area between both sections called Indecision. For us to get to one section successfully, we have to use all our experiences and knowledge to navigate the mazes of the gray area because that is the only way we would be able to make a concrete decision. If not, we would find ourselves jumping from pillar to post, making up our minds and changing them every other minute.

This is why the art of decision-making is so important. If we’re careless about it, then it means that we really don’t care about how the rest of our lives turn out. The life we have today is a culmination of all the decisions and choices we’ve made over time. Our lives would have turned out differently if we refused to listen to the warnings of our parents and instead put our hands into the fire, or walked into the road without crossing. Those tiny decisions have rippled across time to this very day. And that is how it is to this day. The decisions we make today will still have an impact on our lives ten years from now and the decisions of tomorrow will affect us more than twenty years from now. This is why it’s so important.

Knowing something like this, I tend to take my decisions seriously. These days, it’s quite easy to be swayed by the public and pressured into doing something you would rather not do. Many times, we allow the public and people who have no stake in our lives to make decisions for us, and in the end, we end up suffering for it. That’s very sad, but it happens.

When it comes to making decisions, I take it really seriously. If I can help it, I even put it off to the last moment so I will look at all the possible angles before making a decision.

The first thing I consider when making decisions is how they will be beneficial to me and what I hope to gain by the effects of that particular decision. Unless I’m doing it for someone else, there needs to be something I stand to gain, or else there will be no point in me doing it at all.

And then, I also consider what could possibly go wrong with the decision. This is all the consequences I’ll have to bear if things don’t go my way. If this is a risk I’m willing to bear, then I’d go ahead and make the decision. If not, I’ll simply forget all about it. This way, I’ll be prepared for whatever comes up and I’ll be equipped to handle it. I’ll also take responsibility for it because I know that it was a result of my decisions.

Then, one more thing I’d consider is what people will think of me. This is not something a lot of people think but considering how important it is in society, we basically can’t do without it. We have to care about what people think of us, and that will affect the decisions we make and how they see us. You can’t be acting one way and expecting people to see and treat you another way, it just doesn’t work. How you present yourself to people is how they’ll treat you. A lot of people don’t care about this, that’s why we see people doing all sorts of rubbish online just to get validation from people who aren’t validated themselves. Just sick.

Sometimes, I won’t have as much time to think all these through and I’d have to make a decision on the spot. No matter, I do what seems right at the moment. If it goes well, I’ll pat myself on the back, and if it doesn’t, I’ll simply take the L and move on. We can’t always win all the time. We have to know that sometimes, things are not going to go according to plan, and we need to be prepared for that as well.

Like I said at the beginning, decision-making shouldn’t be so hard. But then, life shouldn’t be so hard either. And yet, here we are.

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_{Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, I would love to know what you’re thinking. Till we meet in the next post.}

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_{This post is inspired by the second topic of this week which is Making A Decision. Feel free to try it out.}

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_{N.B: All images used in this post are mine. The thumbnail was designed using Canva.}

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