Cost or Contribute?

Life often seems like an endless series of decisions to be made. Chai latte or decaf Americano? Take a walk or sit at the computer? Plant roses or zinnias? Start a business now or wait until you get fired?

Given the fact that we are called upon to make decision after decision everyday, it would seem reasonable to assume that most of us would have given thought to how we make decisions. We’d have our own decision-making tools that we could employ when needed.

If we l lack such tools, too many decisions are simply based on habit. (Chai latte yesterday, chai latte today, chai latte tomorrow.) That’s not the road to living a creative and inspired life.

Self-doubt—simply not trusting ourselves—is behind much of the indecision we encounter. The sheer abundance of options can make it even more difficult, but living decisively is necessary if we’re to have the richest experience possible.

It may also contribute to our health. According to George Crane, “It is uncertainty or indecision that wears people down and promotes peptic ulcers, high blood pressure and nervous breakdowns.”

Since the decisions we make determine the kind of life that we have, how can we improve our ability to make wise decisions? It may be easier than you think.

My starting point is based on this observation from Stewart Emery: “Nothing in the universe is neutral. It either costs or it contributes.”

That bit of wisdom has simplified decision-making for me ever since I heard it. However, it’s fairly useless without a sense of priority. You need to be clear about what matters most to you and be determined to set up your life to support that.

If being physically healthy is a high priority, every food choice either costs or it contributes. If finishing your book in the next 90 days is a priority, every time choice you make either costs or it contributes. It all comes down to bringing your activities and actions into alignment with your personal goals.

Some decisions require gathering information in advance, of course. Wise leaders in all walks of life have sounding boards, people whose opinions they trust. The trick for us, whether we’re the leader of the free world or not, is to exercise wisdom in choosing the voices we listen to.

Often that means getting advice from strangers, not from those nearest and dearest to us. Then thoughtfully weighing that advice while keeping in mind your ideal outcome, can make the process smoother.

The more familiar you are with your own intuitive voice, the easier it will be to rely on it when it’s time to make a decision—especially a big important one. Even if that’s not your usual method of deciding, here’s an exercise that can be helpful providing you pay attention while you’re doing it.

How can you tell if you really want to do something? Toss a coin. Literally. It works—not because it settles the question for you, but, as the Danish poet and mathematician Piet Hein said, “While the coin is in the air, you suddenly know what you’re hoping for.”

Success, prosperity, all the good things in life only come to us after we’ve decided to let them in. Minute by minute and hour by hour, decide in favor of your dreams.

Hanging On or Moving On?

Every few months, I get the alumni magazine from my college. I usually glance through the class notes to see if there’s anyone I remember who has gotten mentioned.

Most of the entries are a bit, well, dull, saying things like, “Now retired after 30 years teaching in the same school” or “Just retired from 40 years at the bank.”

Apparently, my fellow college students were big on staying put in one place.

One time, however, an entry caught my eye. It read, “Retired after thirty-five years as a social worker and probation officer. He now spends his time as a traveler in Africa and is a full-time freelance outdoors writer.”

I never knew the man so described, but I wanted to.I wanted to know how he kept his adventurous soul alive for such a long time while toiling away in Cook County Illinois.

Leaving a familiar situation is a challenge that comes to all of us—sometimes several times throughout our life.

I once received email from a woman who had spent her life as a teacher. She had stuck with it long after the satisfaction had gone. Now she was ready, she said, to do something completely different.

However, she wasn’t at all certain what the new path should be. That happens, of course, when we become entrenched in a situation or relationship for so long that we forget that we have options.

I made several suggestions about how she could begin exploring. I heard from her again after about ten days and she was making remarkable headway. She’d even listed all of her teaching books on eBay—burning her bridges she said.

Imagine my amazement when I opened her subsequent email which was obviously written in a moment of great panic. “I only have another week to sign my teaching contract,” it read. “Should I sign it?”

I was flabbergasted and promptly replied that I didn’t have the answer to her question. I suggested, however, that it might be a temporary lapse on her part.

Then I said, “So how are you going to tell your grandchildren that you once had an opportunity to create a truly adventurous life and you chickened out?”

The moment I typed that question, I realized at a very deep level, how our acts of self-doubt don’t just impact our own lives, but have a profound ripple effect. Take the low road and you’ll have a procession behind you.

What kind of legacy is that?

We might tell ourselves that staying in a stultifying relationship isn’t really so bad or having a job that robs us of any creative enthusiasm is fine for now, but every day that we hang on we are losing precious time that could be spent building something bold and beautiful.

On the other hand, our acts of courage beget courage in others as well. I’m guessing that my former college classmate will inspire all sorts of people to create their own version of a safari.

While letting go can seem terrifying, think of the times you’ve done so and found yourself in a better place. It’s no use tricking yourself into thinking that you’ll make things better while staying in the bad situation, however. Doesn’t work that way.

As long as you hang on, you can’t move on.

Alternatives for August

When I woke up this morning, I had a whole new idea about the August theme for this blog. The word that was shouting in my head was Alternatives. “That’s interesting,” I thought. It was not at all what I’d been planning to write about.

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. For the past several weeks I’ve been weighing the alternatives of staying in Las Vegas or moving to California. So the process of decision making that comes into play when considering alternatives has been vividly playing in my life.

In case I wasn’t convinced that this was a timely topic, I picked up my latest issue of Afar magazine and noticed the Subaru Outback ad on the back cover. It said, “Buy map. Throw dart.”

That’s one way of selecting from alternatives, I guess, but not exactly what I have in mind for this month’s exploration.

Let’s begin with the dictionary definition: “offering or expressing a choice.” Technically, alternatives refer to a choice between two, and only two, options. However, the more popular notion is that alternatives include a number of choices, the selection of which eliminates the others.

Of course, alternative also is used to mean “different from the usual or conventional.” So we have alternative music, newspapers, lifestyles, education, medicine and so forth.

Since I never know exactly where a theme is going to lead me, I’m going to keep looking at both definitions of the word and what it has to do with the Joyfully Jobless Journey.

The one thing I know for sure is that it’s ridiculously easy to overlook the abundance of alternatives in every situation in which we find ourselves. Too often we limit our choices to far fewer alternatives than actually exist.

As I was considering that, I remembered something Swedish actress Liv Ullmann said in her autobigraphy, Changes.

“I had a life with options but frequently lived as if I had none,” Ullmann writes. “The sad result of my not having exercised my choices is that my memory of myself is not of the woman I believe I am.”

Ullmann’s recollection might have been different had she encountered this bit of advice from British general W. J. Slim:  “When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take, choose the bolder.”

Let’s make that our starting point in this August excursion.