You are faced with some kind of decision you have to make, are on a timeline, and far past the rationalizing stage where you have mentally considered the pros and cons of both potential decisions. Now you are left with what I consider to be the hardest part. What is it that you just want, for yourself, at the end of the day?
Often times if we are honest with ourselves, we know what we want. The hard part, for me at least, comes with that logic being muddled with other factors, such as, but not limited to; Yes, I want this, but is it the "smart" decision? What will others think of me based on this decision? Will I regret this later on?, etc. etc.
Normally these factors are focused on how my decisions will affect other people, rather than myself.
I do struggle with knowing what I want at times, because I'm far too introspective for my own good and have a tendency to consider the previously mentioned factors to the point where they drown out the voice of my own desires for myself and my life. It is extremely frustrating to come across others that are far less indecisive than I, because seeing them breeze through important decisions makes me feel like everyone got a manual for understanding their brain and heart from birth, and mine was the only one to arrive in Korean.
Sadly, I don't know Korean, and my progress with understanding my manual by referring to my English to Korean dictionary is proving slow-coming.
The one silver-lining benefit I see with being a tortured member of the indecisive club (you can check in, but you can't check out... or rather, you will be racked with too much indecision to decide if you want to check out...) is that since we seem to pour ourselves over our decisions more than most, I personally find while I have had a lot of mental anguish and stress in my lifetime, which has aged me, I have very few regrets.
Maybe it's due to cognitive dissonance, that when we spend hours, days, even months trying to make a decision, we refuse to look back and wonder "what if...?" because that would cause our heads to explode and us to spiral downwards into a pit of depression and snakes. Depression is the worst when it's accompanied by snakes.
So, fellow sufferers of indecision, keep that in mind. The hardest thing about life is that happiness requires a lot of balance between things.... and balance is hard to get and basically impossible to maintain. Yes, it's great to be spontaneous.... but we all know people who live so much in the moment that they never think things through, so while they have great stories to tell at parties, their lives tend to be a mess, and they have a lot of regrets. Carefully considering your options is great too.... but do it too much or too intensely and you'll look up from your decisions five years older. We miss so much happening around us when we gaze too long and hard into the mirror.
My suggestion is to try and find out what side of things you tend to be on; either being too spontaneous or too indecisive and being aware of it. It might help you when you're struggling with you next decision to keep in mind that you might want to think this one through more than you normally do, or that you might need to give yourself a break this time.
The race of life is long, sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind, but in the end, it's only against yourself.
My tattoo I got about two years ago that helps remind me to be in the moment more:
