Monday 30 April 2012

The Indecision of Being Decisive

I can be as indecisive as they come. Anyone who knows me will tell you, don’t bother asking me what we should have for dinner, and what DVD we should watch, cause all you will get from me is a ‘I Don’t mind. It’s up to you.’
Some people quite enjoy my laid back-ness, and it is a good trait to have, to an extent. I’m not fussy, I’m easy going, and laid back, but I struggle with the simple notion of making a decision. And sometimes people find it frustrating, I understand, I do to. Most of my friends are rather decisive because they know that if they relied on my to pick the restaurant for dinner, we’d never get there before midnight.

I sometimes come across as spontaneous, sometimes, but let me assure you I am far less spontaneous than I wish I was. You see, even though the decision to jump on a plane to Europe on my own at 19 seemed spontaneous, it was in fact a result of months of thinking, rationalizing, planning, in my head. The decision to ‘let’s go to the football in 10min’ is not the spur-of-the-moment unplanned decision that is conveyed. In those mere seconds of consideration a barrage of calculations (costs, time, logistics of parking, traffic routes), play out in my head, determining my decision. And what seems like a cheerfully impulsive decision to catch a football game, is actually a largely rationalized and anything but a ‘gut’ decision.
Lately iv been faced with big decisions to make. And big decisions don’t bode well with my inability to make decisions…

At the end of last year I was offered an internship to work in the USA for 2months. Whilst most people would not hesitate at such an offer I was almost crippled with indecision. Admittedly, I did feel I had legitimate decisions to make. My father is suffering from cancer, so the decision to leave my family for 2months at this difficult time, was what weighed on me the most. It was the ‘I don’t want to let my family down’ ‘What will people think if I go half way across the word while my father is dying of cancer?’ ‘Will people think I’m just running from my problems?’ ‘What if I’m not good at my job?...’
I went to LA. And loved it. Dad was fine, the family were great, and I had such an amazing experience, both career wise and personally. But just a few weeks ago I was faced with a very similar decision again. Having made this type of decision before I thought it would be easier. But for a person who overthinks, making any decision is never easy.
This time I’ve been asked to be an ambassador for a foundation that does work aiding disadvantaged kids in developing countries through education and life skills. They want to send me to Bangalore, India, for 4 weeks to help out in one of their programs. It’s all expenses paid, so money is not the issue. Again I should have been jumping out of my boots with excitement, but again, I was disabled with indecisiveness. I didn’t want to let my hockey team down by missing 3 matches. I didn’t want to go away for 4 weeks and not be working on my research because my supervisor might think im not serious about my thesis. I didn’t want to miss the planned dress shopping for my best friend’s wedding. And again, I didn’t want to leave my family. Dad was scheduled for another operation in May. I didn’t tell my family about the offer to begin with, because I didn’t know how. How could I tell them I wanted to leave again? I knew they’d be supportive of it, but that’s not what I wanted.  I wanted to know what they felt; did they feel I was deserting them again? Inside did they think I didn’t care about Dad?

It was during writing an email to a friend, writing out these ‘pros and cons’ for India, that I realised that all my ‘cons’ were based around others. And they always have been. What would people think? How would my family feel? Would I be letting my hockey team down? I was so concerned with keeping everybody else happy, with not letting others down, that I was willing to pass an opportunity to make myself happy. Truthfully, I had always wanted to volunteer in a 3rd world country. I had always wanted to help, make a difference, so I’d be lying if I said my initial feeling wasn’t pure excitement at the possibility of fulfilling this dream. But that moment was short live, quickly overcome with my good ol’ indecisive brain. And when I think about it, almost all my decisions are based around others. It’s not an inability to make a decision, it’s an inability to say no, an inability to realise you can’t please everybody and you can’t do everything. I hate letting people down, but I need to learn that saying ‘No’ is not letting somebody down, because if you’re forever saying yes you’ll only end up letting yourself down by having no time for you.
Whilst the ability to rationalize in my brain is an asset to have, I feel sometimes that I lack the ability to block out my head and make decisions purely with my heart. Maybe its just the way I am, I trust my head more than my heart. And even though I’m scientifically minded, even I will concede that the heart does not exist solely for the purpose of pumping blood. Sometimes I need to quit following my head and just follow my heart. But I also need to understand that sometimes my head is right and that sometimes that ‘feeling’ holding me back is just fear. Fear because I know that I’m doing something new, something challenging, something that could become so much more than I imagined.

I need to quit being so damn afraid of letting people down, I need to make my decisions based on me, and not always based on those around me. To be honest, I need to be a little bit more self-centred. It is a fantastic characteristic to be able to entertain the consequences your actions can have on others, but if you spend too much time about how other people will feel, what others will think, you will miss opportunities to be truly happy yourself. To live the life you truly want to, and to do the things you’ve always dreamed of.

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