Choices
After writing this piece, where I mention that it’s important to make the right choices in life both during the big milestone moments and in the little day-to-day moments, I had a thought that I wanted to explore here.
Which do you think would be more difficult:
Making the choice you believe/know to be right, even if you may have to sacrifice something, in a big milestone life moment.
Random examples could be: deciding to euthanize a beloved pet, pass on a promotion and big raise because it would keep you from your loved ones, or leaving a field of study because you were truly unhappy.
Making the choice you believe/know to be right in the tiny little life moments we all face each day – usually sacrificing little more than the comfort of the moment.
Random examples could be: getting a good amount of exercise, calling a loved on you know would appreciate it, engaging in a healthy hobby, eating good food, or even just picking up the trash you pass in the park.
If you asked me yesterday which was more difficult, I bet I would have said #1 – and I would have said it was a ridiculous question. Of course it’s easier to decide to get off my ass and go for a walk instead of watching another episode. How could anyone possibly compare that trivial daily nonsense to any of the examples I listed above?
The large decisions. The major life milestone moments. The forks in the road that life places in our path. These are unavoidable – they are major life decisions precisely because we cannot avoid them and are forced to make a decision, one way or the other.
Further, when we’re faced with such decisions, the spotlight of life shines on that moment. Time slows down, and we know how serious the choice we face is to our life, or the life of another. The magnitude of such choices can often be seen internally as a moment in which we have the opportunity to define ourselves as human beings.
Those two factors – the inescapable nature, and the focus we experience – will make them more emotional, memorable, and impactful than the tiny choices we all make each day, but I would also argue that it makes them easier to make.
What has to be done, in relation to these major life decisions, is likely not easy at all. But the decision itself – the decision to do what you know/believe to be the right thing, is what I argue is the easier of the two types of decisions.
The other type of decisions, the grain-of-sand decisions we all face each day are small, avoidable, and forgettable. They are the ones which are easy to dismiss, since the consequences of them are harder to see – after all, it’s just one grain of sand.
Unlike milestones, grains of sand are easy to ignore, as they barely register on our life’s radar. It is infinitely easier to make decisions we know to be against our deep values and principles when we think they don’t matter – in fact, we often don’t think we’re even making decisions.
Faced with a major life decision, I am forced to decide.
A thousand tiny choices each day, I am able to easily pass them by, ignoring what I know to be right and telling myself that the grain of sand is of no consequence.
Our lives, however, are not defined by the milestones, but by the sand that builds up over decades.
Pay attention. Choose well.
