TimothySaffles.com

I was just having a conversation over lunch with a co-worker of mine, Jenny (no not her real name). Over the course of this conversation, I discovered, much to my dismay, that she cannot decide on a single thing. From which meal to order to which handbag to bring into work today, it all seems like an insurmountable Everest of decisions to her. I have no earthly idea why. Even the most mundane and seemingly trivial choices become moments of hesitation. These hesitations become missed opportunities. These missed opportunities become a backlog of mildly frustrating, usually comical half-taken chances.

At least she has the good humor to laugh about it as well.

What strikes me as odd is that Jenny could serve as a surrogate for most of the people in America. Granted, certain socio-economic, cultural, and gender issues aside, and the fact that I have never met most of the people in America, I do observe quite a few individuals making the same little stutter-steps.

Let’s take this example:

On the way into work last week, Jenny and I were chatting along in our usual carpool early morning banter about significant others, the economy, the odd tendencies of people to see in only “black or white” situations, when, as is normal, we arrive at the work parking lot. Now for the conundrum: Two parking spots remain empty in our normal area of the front lot. Normally, though I was not driving, I would have chosen the closest of the parking spots as it provides a better angle to swing the nose of the car through. This, in my opinion, gives the optimum placement for the vehicle in the center of the parking spot and minimizes the chance of hitting another vehicle (always a possibility when maneuvering my Behemothian Goliath of an Expedition (Yeah, I know. Behemothian isn’t a word and I shouldn’t be driving the global warming machine). In this case, instead of choosing the first space, Jenny half-hesitating turns the wheel…pause…. car rolling forward at a sub-optimal angle….brake…… slowdown… accelerate into the second spot only to end up with the back half of the vehicle clearly not in the lines. Now we must reverse and straighten three times to get it right.

In the space of about 2 seconds, we almost ended up sideways and backwards.

Why the hesitation? Either choice would have worked. But the combination of hesitation and half-cocked commitment ended up with terrible results. The only way it could have been worse was if we actually hit a parked car.

I have plenty of other examples but in the interest of brevity I’ll post only one more. As Dan Tosh might say, “I think two examples is enough, next joke”.

How about the situation where, no matter who accompanies me to lunch, no one has any idea where they want to go? This might be the most frustrating of all the indecisive squabbles. No one really knows where they want to go, but bring up a suggestion, and they sure as hell don’t want to go there.

“Super Salad?”

“No, that place seems dirty.”

“Fine, Sweet Tomato then.”

“I’m not really in the mood for salad bar.”

“Red Robin?”

“I can’t eat burgers. They make me bloated.”

People don’t know what they want, but they sure know what they don’t want. At least, that’s how it seems.
Maybe there is something to say here about the seemingly unending ocean of choices that Americans are bombarded with each day. What time to get up? What shampoo to use? Is my breakfast going to make me fat? Should I do something before I go to work? How does my hair look? Am I going to be late? How fast should I drive? What route should I take? Which parking spot should I choose? Which task to work on first? Where to go to lunch?

Maybe some people are just incapable of making choices quickly and effectively. Given the vast amount of problems requiring input-calculation-output, it appears some are incapable of prioritizing choices.

Here is a little reality check: very few choices that you make can never be undone/changed. Add to that the fact that, honestly, most of the things you will be deciding really don’t matter and you have the beginnings of a truly stress free outlook on life. Think about it. Does it really matter where you go to lunch? You’ll likely survive whatever foodlike product they hurl at you. Relax a little.

Yes, there are important choices to make in life. Some of them jump at you without warning. But I’m pretty sure if we can just learn to stop stressing over the little choices, we can focus on the larger choices (for instance…who should be president…we all learned our lesson on that one I hope).

Here are some sites that you might find interesting for further reading:

http://zenhabits.net/2007/11/meditation-for-beginners-20-practical-tips-for-quieting-the-mind/ (I hear it works well)

http://goodnessgraciousness.blogspot.com/ (Reminder to look for beauty)

http://www.gitomer.com/articles/ThisWeeksColumn.html (Great motivational writer/speaker)

Respectfully,
Tim