Celebrating Being Human

Making Difficult Decisions

I can tell when a post resonates with people…my view counts and new subscribers increase significantly, and typically there are a lot of comments from readers. Thus it was with the recent post In Search of Paradise. It got me thinking about how we make difficult decisions.

Reader Comments

There were a number of things I took from reader comments to In Search of Paradise:

1. The choice to leave the country was easier for us because we don’t have children.

2. Remarkably, we are not the only crazies. Several people commented they decided not to wait for the pandemic to end … to move to a country they had never visited … to sell everything … to jump in the deep end.

3. Finally, Mike asked a good question: “Does having that place [i.e. retaining your house in the States] as a fallback inhibit your ability to fully commit to the new country?”

So while I thought I was trying to make a difficult choice a bit easier, by offering a safety net…perhaps there is another way to look at the problem. This led me to quite a few Google searches and watching hours of videos online. It is really quite amazing what rabbit holes I find myself crawling into on occasion.

People are Different

Let me begin by stating the obvious. Not everyone makes decisions the same way. In fact, some people can seem incapable of making any decision. I once had a Support Manager in the small division I managed. When faced with a difficult problem, I was certain to find him behind his desk, his office door closed, and totally paralyzed. It used to drive me nuts! In doing research for this post I found:

Certain personality traits are characteristic of indecisive individuals. Most notably, neuroticism, which is the tendency to be is prone to negative emotions and psychological stress, is strongly correlated with indecisiveness, as is perfectionism. In addition, indecisiveness is associated with the tendency to interpret ambiguous situations as threatening, and to engage in worst-case reasoning. — Effectivology

Of course, my natural tendency is to do exactly the opposite. I try to put myself in the center of the situation…gathering as much information as possible. If there is more than one good approach to dealing with the situation, I will likely put multiple options in motion at once. Clearly, my approach is inefficient and potentially costly. But it made me feel better to be doing something…anything…even if later it was determined that some of what was initiated failed.

Fortunately, Denise and I have relatively similar approaches to decision-making. I can’t imagine what it must be like for a couple where one partner is raring to go and the other isn’t sure or has created an endless list of hurdles to be cleared before a decision is made. This could put as much strain on a marriage as disagreeing about money.

When Options are on Par

Of all the reading I did and video-watching I did in preparation for this post, there was one particular Ted Talk that I think best framed the issue. One of the things that can make a decision hard is when the available options are “on par”. It is not as simple as Option A is clearly good and Option B is clearly bad. It is not as easy as 3 is greater than 2. When it seems that neither option is clearly the best … "you can take job #1 or job #2”, “you can pursue this career or that career”, that we have an opportunity to become the person we want to become. As the presenter states:

When we choose between options on a par, we do something rather remarkable. We can put our very selves behind an option. Here is where I stand. Here is who I am … We become the authors of our own lives. — Ruth Chang

What a wonderful way to frame such decisions. Rather than drifting through life, allowing something or someone else to write our story, we make a choice that proclaims to the world “this is who I am”.

One Foot on the Dock

I am reminded of my conversation with the American I mentioned in the prior post who said he went in search of paradise but didn’t find it. Immediately after that sentence, he said, but I am still coming to Portugal. Like me, he had had a successful career and couldn’t imagine just hanging out for the next 25 or 30 years. And because he is self-aware he set a timeframe for his move. “Otherwise I fear I will end up with one foot on the dock.” This brings me back to Mike … is keeping a house and things in the States like having one foot on the dock? Does it stop us from fully committing to who we want to be?

If you are having a difficult time making the decision to move overseas … if you want to celebrate, rather than dread, making this difficult decision watch this video:

And whatever decision you make, just make sure you are the author of your own life.