Plagued By Indecision

Earlier today, I had a really marvelous conversation with my brilliant friend Kristine. The topic into which we delved was how many choices women have in life and how difficult it can be, at times, to wade through those endless possibilities to come up with the “right” selection for you at any given time.

The impetus for this conversation was a personal issue with which I have been grappling and pertains to the book I am writing. A challenge for me lately is that I seem to be writing up a storm (a good thing) but I have lost, or perhaps I have yet to find, the unifying thread that holds all my writing together as a unit. In other words, I feel I am standing around clutching innumerable limbs and branches when, ironically, I have no trunk.

Yes, I am without trunk. Thank goodness I am not an elephant or I would be in a real pickle.

In short, my book has lost its backbone due to all of these tangents I feel compelled to explore. My frustration du jour is that there are about five books I am writing at once, and I cannot seem to make a decision to stick with one over the others. Adding to the madness: just when I have decided on the exact path I would like to follow, boom! I am distracted by one of those darn intriguing window displays again, and in I go for a wander. Soon, I have turned down a new path altogether and I am at a loss for knowing from where I started and to where I wish to go.

All of this talk about choices in life really struck a chord during my talk with Kristine.

As women, we have innumerable choices in life. “Options” is certainly an operative word among women and women’s issues today. This situation is obviously indicative of the strides we have made as a gender and it is a circumstance deserving of ample appreciation. The fact that we have endless possibilities in terms of vocation, hobbies, parenting, and partnership is a fantastic representation of how far we have come over the past 50-odd years in terms of securing a place of equality amongst humanity. (Not that we do not have need for further evolvement, but that is a topic for another day).

However, all of this opportunity seems to have induced an unexpected issue: as a gender, we are plagued by indecision. Moreover, we can easily become paralyzed by the decision-making process. It seems to me that we are so aware of our endless options that we fear making the “wrong” decision and then living with the ensuing regret as a repercussion. We fear this possible outcome so intensely, that we often fail to make any decision at all. The irony is implicit: we have worked for all that we have available to us and yet we are stymied by the very thing we wanted—to the point that we are not even able to take advantage of it with regards to certain aspects of our lives.

As proof of this assertion, I offer an example involving a dear girlfriend of mine. Having long been someone to whom I turn when I am in need of guidance during a decision, this woman is a person of sound judgment, inherent kindness, and a solid sense of reality. She is a driven, independent woman and has followed a clear trajectory on her career path-something I admire a great deal. In short, she is amazing, and I love her.

She is also someone who, like virtually every woman in my life, has areas where her own inability to make solid decisions frustrates the heck out of her. One of those areas pertains to where she wants to live, another to her romantic relationships. And another involves restaurants.

My friend regularly works herself up into a state of panic every time we are ordering in a restaurant. This anxiety is triggered because she is so worried about selecting the “wrong” item from the menu and then having to endure the miserable and inevitable subsequent feelings of “food envy.”

Interestingly enough, this disappointment sets in preemptively--before the food even arrives. In fact, it often occurs before she even places her order. One time she started to chase down a waitress, telling the third girlfriend at our table: “I wish I got what you got. I am going to tell the server.” Only to be told in response, “But you hate curry, and I ordered Thai curry.” “I know,” she lamented, “but I still think I want it.” She reluctantly sat down, already visibly disappointed and filled with regret as she waited for her burger.

It might be interesting for you to know that she had been talking about her cravings for a burger before we even arrived at the restaurant. Incidentally, I think we selected that very restaurant BECAUSE of her wanting that very burger.

But then, faced with myriad decisions, she lost touch with what she instinctually and intuitively wanted. Suddenly, because there were just so many options, how on earth could she ever know what would be the “right” one or the “best” one. With all those choices the likelihood of choosing "wrong," mathematically speaking, seems pretty high. And then, even if she did enjoy the burger ultimately (I think she did), there was an awful lot of her emotional energy expended and her time wasted as she hesitated with her decision.

And this is all over a burger!

So this story may sound trite and/or silly, but I believe this ordering at the restaurant thing is indicative of a larger issue. I believe that we all worry about the potential for “food envy” and regret when we make many of our decisions, from the large ones to the small ones. I believe this circumstance challenges every modern woman in some facet of her life—if not in several.

Consider that on a given day, I have conversations with women in my life about whether or not they want to divorce their husbands, move in with their boyfriends, or choose to never marry at all. We wonder whether we will have children of our own, adopt children, or go childless. We wonder if we should leave our job, go back to school, run a marathon, or take up painting. We wonder if we should spend a vacation in Mexico, Maui ,or mom’s house. Then, if we choose Mexico, we wonder if we ought to do charity work or sip margaritas or learn to salsa. We wonder if ought to go the grocery store or go to yoga.

And then--whether we decide to adopt a parrot, a puppy or a child--the decision is barely out of our mouth when the lamentations for what we did not choose sets in. Anticipation of that regrettable feeling that we all know so well has a paralyzing effect as we make our decisions.

But the truth is this: there are always going to be many, many options. And that is a good thing, right? So what then?

Well, I feel like what most of us wind up doing is going home, flipping on the television, slipping into a Snuggie and forgetting the issue with a glass of wine and a brownie.

Until tomorrow when the questioning starts all over again.

Or maybe that is just me. Snuggie excluded.

Let me be clear here in saying that I do not think we possess a “grass is always greener” complex or that we are delusional about our expectations for life. I think we just hold ourselves to incredibly high standards. After all, we are able to make sound, competent and “successful” decisions in most facets of our life. Why then, does there always seem to be a couple of areas where we reach the threshold of the decision making door and we become frozen in place?

What do you think?