How I Dealt with Indecision

If your face when looking at a restaurant menu looks like this 99% of the time, then your 99% most likely as indecisive as I am.

That statistic was made-up, but I’m not a STEM major so I’m not going to correct my own exaggeration.

We live in a modern world, a world filled with a CRAP TON (actual scientific measurement alongside Kevins and centipedes) of OPTIONS.

When deciding between five thousand ice cream flavors and possible combinations, for example, it sounds pretty boring just choosing strawberry when you could pick Oreo mint with potato chip crisps or something.

So, most of us just freeze up. Or we pick the easiest option, then we figure out whether we have regrets about that decision or not.

Hear me out. I used to be that indecisive. Should I order the soup or the pie? Should I sleep in or wake up early? Should I stay in tonight or go out with friends? Then, in a great fit of indecision, I just wouldn’t choose.

And, as you can imagine, living a life without making decisions tends to make you feel like you lack control. And that’s a scary, scary thing.

So, I took it even more out of my hands by trusting someone else with the decision. Or, more precisely, something else.

I’d narrow my options down to the two I liked best, then I’d flip a coin, a card, or something that could be split into “heads and tails” or play a game of “eenie meenie miney…”

Then I stopped leaving it to chance with the coin flips once I started playing games of 2/3 because I REALLY didn’t like the option fate chose for me. I did eenie-meenie-miney and Moe’d my way to the option that I liked best.

You see what’s happening here?

(call me Shawshank redemption-ed)

THAT’S RIGHT! I STARTED MAKING MY OWN DECISIONS WHEN I DIDN’T LIKE THE ALTERNATIVE THAT THE CARDS PICKED FOR ME!

Sure, most people told me that, subconsciously, the eenie-meenie-miney game was just what I preferred anyways. (It’s a pretty easy game to “rig”, if I might say, once you learn the patterns). So, I was making choices by pretending that I was letting someone else “take the wheel of Fortune”, so to speak.

I’m not sure if this will work for every indecisive person, but some tips if you decide to try it and flip coins in barista lines.

A. If you REALLY feel uncomfortable with what option ended up being picked, then decide WHY, and reflect on where that source of discomfort comes from. For example, I often resent social situations if I’m not in the right mindset, but then once I stick out the awkwardness for a half hour, it often improves, and I learned how to get out of my comfort zone.

B. Know this is a coin flip, a game of probability, not a religion. Do with that knowledge what you will.

C. Don’t trust IMPORTANT DECISIONS like your house, your loved ones, or future career path to a toss-up. Those, I would suggest you speak to outside people you trust, and make a decision based less on coin flips and more on reason.

I wish you all the best, my fellow indecisive people.

FROM: www.sophiawhittemore.com

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