The Decision Dilemma

Aaqil Qureshi
5 min readMar 14, 2021
  1. TURN DOWN THE NOISE

One of the mistakes we make when we are undertaking a decision is that we assume our wants are absolute and we are totally aware about what we want and why we want it. But, it’s often the case that what you might believe as your “wants” are actually something you’d never like to have, but have been made to “want” it for one reason or another. So, here “turning down the noise” means about the external influences which are writing the script and you are merely being the role player. Our wants are really complicated not because we lack some inherent quality rather it’s the intrinsic nature of our human psyche that a large part of who we are is always in the dark, unknown to us. And thus, there’s enough of chance that we might be motivated to want things that aren’t necessarily good for us. This is the precise reason why you need to step back and question why you want certain things from your life, it’s the starting point for “knowing yourself”. This is true for career decisions than anything else, before diving into a new career, take time to explore yourself. You must spend time with yourself apart from other people’s opinions about you. Considering opinions of others is almost always a good thing, but it’s a bad strategy when opinions of others make yours more vague than they were before, which is the opposite of what you’d like to have i.e. clarity of what you want and what you don’t. Maybe people tell you that you are naive which might be true but this doesn’t imply that they have the clearest idea about who you actually are and what you want. And the fact is: No one can be sure about it other than you, while for some it can be a good thing and for others a terrible one, but regardless what this means is that you have got the power in your hands for the decisions that you will make for your life. So make sure, you don’t let others delude you.

2. ASK YOURSELF WHY

Steven Covey penned this beautiful line in his masterpiece First Things First: “We are free to choose but we are not free from the consequences of our choices”. As we’ve stated before, knowing what one really wants is a complicated thing, on the contrary what’s easy is to go along-with what we feel “in the moment”. This is not just difficult but is almost an involuntary process during the age of adolescence, when we are in the process of biological and psychological maturity. But, unexamined choices are the recipe for cultivating a life of unnecessary suffering. This is precisely because we are prone to make the worst possible decision when we are engulfed with the emotional chaos that goes on psychologically, to make a decision, by definition means to engage our rational mind and examine the choices we have. While this is understandably a difficult task for every adolescent but nonetheless this can be the starting point from where you start making further better decisions in your life. We can’t move through our lives thinking that the fulfillment of desire is going to lead to a deeply satisfying life experience. Wanting something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for us. Kids want candies for meals, and we might want a beer instead of water, but wants are nothing more than our minds being in a certain emotional state, which changes almost instantaneously and thus should never be mistaken as our core values. Knowing what we value most, what our highest priorities are — and should be–will reveal to us the best answers we need to make our decisions. Choose wisely.

Sometimes it’s difficult to choose since there is often an unconscious tug-of-war between saying “yes” to one thing, which inevitably means saying “no” to another. When we are caught in an internal conflict over which way to choose, we can feel overwhelmed. This can have a paralyzing effect upon our necessary action. When we succumb to indecision, even in our indecisiveness we are making a choice. And often we never know that we are doing so until we are later met with the consequences of it. In a sense, our life is nothing but a large continuum of Yes/No questions which we are answering every moment regardless of whether we’re aware of this process or not. There isn’t a single job that doesn’t have it’s drawbacks. Each of the paths to career success requires varying degrees of struggle and perseverance. You have to be sure you’re willing to put up with them in exchange for the benefits. And often there are chances you’d regret later about your decisions, but the only way you can decrease the chances of being regretful is by taking control of the decision making process and try your best, the rest is what fate gifts you with.

3. What Should You Do Now?

Choosing well is difficult, and most of the time decisions have several dimensions to them than what they seem at the surface. For example, when choosing a job we need to consider it’s salary, location, opportunities, as well as the nature of the work itself among many others that factor into your deliberations. This means that you have to consider your values across all these factors and that’s not really easy. And thus, when seeking for help instead of looking for advice you should rather look for information about what you’re unaware. No matter how successful or wise someone is, they can give you advice that’ll just lead you astray. So, what’s rather a wise thing to do is to gather as much information as you can from people and then think yourself through the information to make decisions. Most people are stuck in their lives because of their fear about things that are outside of their safety zones, but the only way you can grow is by facing what’s unknown and uncertain and then learning from it. And this process of facing the unknown is difficult because it needs you to overcome your fears, but once you start facing it, challenging yourself and repeatedly learning you’d realize how much more efficient and better you’ve become. This is crucial in decision-making, because you can’t make decisions without facing your fears. There’s always the uncertainty about how your decisions would turn out, but still you need to overcome the fear and make the best decision you can. Lastly, you should try to accept that regardless of how things turn out to be, there’s always something you can be grateful about. Try inculcating this practice regularly, this cultivates a less stressed mindset which thus enhances the quality of the decisions you make and also it reminds you of things that you’ve taken for granted. Life’s decisions are hard to make, but as we all know perfection is practically impossible, we need to give up the illusion of trying to achieve it and rather experiencing the satisfaction that one has now and try being the best versions of ourselves in the future.

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