The Long Road

07/24/2003 Archived Entry: "decisions, decisions."

Seems like a good month for making big decisions. Someone’s getting married, someone’s switching schools, someone’s breaking up, someone’s switching programs. Good luck with all of that, boyz and grrls.

I find that I’m very bad at making big decisions, heck I’m not even good at choosing something from a menu. I’m more navel-gazer than decision-maker. Many of my decisions just seem to be made “by default” or someone else decides for me. This is why McDonald’s daily McDeals are so great; I never have to think of what I should order.

After taking a serious beating in first year, I was really contemplating switching out of my program but I never did anything about it and the idea just faded from my mind. But maybe it’s also cuz I was lazy and didn’t want to do all the work involved. Who knows! I do enjoy CS though so I’m glad I’m still in it.

Maybe I’m just not presented with enough important choices in a day, the biggest decision I’ve had to make this month was “should I pursue this or not?”.

This isn’t to say that I’m an indecisive person; I CAN make decisions, it just takes me a while…maybe.

Enough rambling!

Replies: 7 comments

I always carry around a digital decision generator... and if that does not work for your situation, when has "The Magic 8 Ball" ((Insert Theme Music Here)) ever failed us?

Posted by Hyperion @ 07/24/2003 04:07 PM EST

sounds too much like Bat-Villain Two-Face who let his coin make all his decisions. If I end up with an evil eight-ball it'd be all over!

Posted by Rayne @ 07/24/2003 07:20 PM EST

As long as it's not another of my friends getting married too young!

Posted by Andrea @ 07/25/2003 01:29 AM EST

damn fricking crap. but i'll mention that later.

decision making. i am not good AT ALL at making decisions. i don't care about anything, so why should i have to decide about it?

shawn, where do you want to eat tonight?
i dunno...
DECIDE?
how? it doesn't matter to me!

i think recently i've gotten more in the habit of making random decisions, just so people won't see me as indecisive. i mean really, all these damn decisions i'm faced with, NONE OF THEM MATTER!!

the last big decision i had was... i can't think of anything. it was probably deciding to try and talk to someone, back in march i think. and then it took over a month to ACTAULLY talk, but whatever.

that was really the only decision in the last while that drastically affected my life. the next one before that was deciding to become a frosh leader. only two majors in half a year. only two decisions that mattered. the rest could have been random dice throws, and it wouldn't matter.

and the fricking crap comment at the top: that was about the shawnathan.woot.net address not working properly. it goes to the first place correctly, but the script stuff in the journal link doesn't work from then on.

Posted by shawnathan @ 07/28/2003 04:35 PM EST

I think important decision-making is usually best when done very smoothly. Usually, when a major decision comes in front of me, i just think about it absently during a few weeks and the answer comes by itself.

I'm not sure what you guys mean when you say that you're BAD at making them... do you want to say that you wish afterwards that your decision was different? If so, i think major decisions are usually the ones which offer a few different scenarios that are nearly equal in your mind, though they offer completely different possibilities (good examples are the choice of school program, deciding to go out with someone or to stay alone or to try with someone else, etc.). With such decisions, its completely normal to have regrets afterwards.
I try to think that, most of the time i would have had as much regrets with the other choices i had than the one i made. There are just so many lose-lose choices in life. :(
I don't love the program i am in which is economics, but i'm not sure i would have liked any other program better. Your situation for CS reminds me a lot of my friend who is a great artist. When he was in high school he loved drawing in his spare time, but when he started studying it he lost a lot of interest in visual arts. He would surely have liked a lot less any other program, but 3 years of nothing but art was to much for him.

We just aren't made to be only one thing. I'm sure your CS choice was the best you could make, i feel that it fits you well :P. I think it's the same for me with economics, even though i complain about it all the time eheh.

Posted by Étienne @ 07/30/2003 02:17 PM EST

When I say that I'm "bad" at making big decisions I just mean that it usually takes me much longer than I want it to. Or I wait so long to do so that the decision doesn't matter anymore because someone/something else had made that decision. Sure I regret making bad decisions sometimes but that's not what I mean here.

Posted by Rayne @ 07/30/2003 03:49 PM EST

Okay. Here's a pretty quote about decisions:

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

Posted by Étienne @ 07/30/2003 03:53 PM EST