Two of Swords – Decisions, Decisions

Who hasn’t had the Two of Swords experience? You have a decision to make. You’ve considered the pros and cons, you’ve weighed and balanced and looked at the thing from all angles. And you Just.Can’t.Decide. You are stuck. Stucker than stuck.

I pulled this card only a few days after having finished reading Designing Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. (Which was an excellent read, by the way, for those of us interested in living a fulfilling, meaningful life. I am truly inspired by it!)

The book notes that we have a cultural notion that, when making decisions, it is good to have lots of options. The more the better! It turns out, however, that this is hard on our brains. In the words of the authors: “The perception that there are gazillions of possibilities that may have been great but that we never got to is a powerful force against being at peace with our choice making: even if we don’t know what it was, there must have been a better option out there, and we missed it.”

Back in November, I suggested that when you’re stuck like this, to go with your gut — and that remains a good idea! But what happens when you did the mental leg-work, experimented with some options, and finally went with your gut and made your decision … and now here you are, driving yourself crazy as you second-guess your gut?

What do you do? Let go and move on. Embrace the choice made, and let the other possibilities go. There is no one perfect way to live your life. There is no one Absolutely Correct decision. If you are building a life that is true to your needs and values, however, if all your decisions are based in those ideas, then all your decisions — okay, we’re not perfect; most of your decisions — will be good ones. They will add value, richness, depth and meaning to your life. Satisfaction. Fun. Whatever it is you’re after, you can build your way toward it.

(And poor decisions are not the end of the world, anyway. They are learning opportunities, things that reveal how to get it better next time.)

So this month’s Two of Swords lesson is: There are no perfect decisions. Think, feel, decide, and do. And thereafter, think about what you are doing, not what you didn’t do!

Words to live by.