Decisions are incredibly personal. We each make a million a day and tend to live with the consequences. Both of our own decisions, and that of those around us.
The Nature Of Decisions
There are big decisions, there are small decisions.
There are decisions that become routine, such as eggs and toast for breakfast. There are decisions that catch you off guard and find you caravaning off to foreign countries or uprooting your entire lifestyle for the sake of a whim.
But sometimes, you go to the grocery store because you ran out of eggs.
You catch sight of a flyer advertising something you always want to try.
A week later, you sign up for classes.
Your confidence increases as you take your newfound interest to the streets. You find yourself involved taking different risks. You find yourself meeting new and interesting people.
Your new network opens new doors.
Your life takes a 180° because you ran out of eggs one day.
You Make The A Difference
Your life is not a book to fall asleep to.
Buying more eggs and selling everything you own seem wildly disconnected, but you can never tell which decision will take you to that next page. Or which page will take you to the next chapter.
But if you don’t keep reading, you’re never going to know. If you’re not willing to pay attention to the story, you’re going to get stuck re-reading the same page over and over again because you didn’t really take in what was happening. You try to move on, only to get lost and confused. So you read the same page again.
We’ve all done it while we’re laying in bed, falling asleep.
Your life is much more than a book to fall asleep to. You’ve got to wake up. Focus. Pay attention. Drink some caffeine if you must.
Play an active role in moving forward.
Decisions Are Opportunities You Take
You can’t control what opportunities are available to you. Sometimes you’re the wrong person, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
More often, you’re not taking the opportunities that are available to you.
Maybe you’re distracted by a shinier opportunity just out of reach. Maybe you weren’t paying attention to the opportunity at hand. Maybe you were too focused on a page 3 chapters ahead (or a terrible page from several chapters behind) that you forgot to look at the page you were on.
Sometimes opportunities fall in your lap. Sometimes opportunities have to be sought out. It’s a mix and match game, entirely unpredictable.
Decisions are what you do about opportunities big and small.
Plans Are Guesses, Life Is Unpredictable
At the end of the day, your decisions can only take you so far.
Your plans will help guide your decisions. Your life mission will help shape your plans.
But your plans are just guesses. We evolve, circumstances change, people come and go, life happens. You can’t predict all of it. You have to be willing to change direction and make a new guess.
You make the decisions you can handle today. That’s all you can ask of yourself.
Do the best you can with right now.
Action And Inaction
Both action and inaction are decisions. Doing something and choosing not to do it are both decisions.
Which type of decisions will you make?
At the end of the day, you’re the one who has to live with them.