Living: the ultimate team sport

Decision making roadblocks

Posted on April 29, 2015 Updated on April 25, 2015

I like what I like.  How many times have you been asked to choose between one thing and another, you choose the thing, and then you’re asked, “What made you choose that?”  If you’re the mother of Not Quite the Plan‘s author, your answer is, “I like what I like.”

I love the example of this mini-dilemma found in the attached article.  The blog author’s mother, I’ll call her Mrs. Mom, cuts to the chase; she doesn’t waste any time deliberating; she simply knows what she likes: she doesn’t like the cat that keeps jumping on her lap, but she does like fudge bars.  Mrs. Mom has dementia.  Perhaps because of her condition, the decisions she makes are far less complicated than they used to be.  Her measuring rod: I like what I like.

Weighing the pros and cons is a very important step in the decision making process, but oftentimes we get hung up on the P & C list and fall into the paralysis by analysis quagmire.  The list doesn’t have to be multiple pages long and it doesn’t have to be perfected before we take the first step.  What’s the worse that could happen? Let’s look at the possibilities.

Okay, no problem.  When you encounter roadblocks figure out what needs to be done to get over, through, or around them.  Sometimes the pot holes help us more than hurt us.  Here’s a truth: I learned more from the difficult times in my life than I did the free-and-easy times.  In my experience, the school of hard knocks proved to be a fabulous working environment.

My final word on the matter: don’t over think.  If you do, you’re being counterproductive.  “Ah, but there’s safety to be found in the planning stages.” 

If you say so, but I’m not buying it.