What do you do when listing the pros and cons just can’t help you? The technique is supposed to be a clarifier, and often it is. But there is a particular kind of choice where it quietly turns into the opposite.
Sometimes the more I weighed the pros and cons, trying to induce a decision, the more indecisive I became. Each new column did not resolve the tension; it added another thread to keep track of, another way the two options could be made to look equal. The very thoroughness that was meant to settle me was what kept me circling.
And sometimes simply following instinct — committing to any choice at all — lifted the spirit and kicked things forward. Say you are stuck between two restaurants and have been comparing them for ten minutes: the moment you pick one and start walking, the weight lifts, even though nothing about the menus changed. Maybe, down the road, the other choice turns out to be better. But here is the question worth holding onto: was it better by enough to justify the mental cost — and sometimes the emotional cost — of boiling everything down to that one perfect decision? Often the answer is no. The real skill is not choosing perfectly, but choosing quickly and moving on. (A question I keep turning over alongside a friend’s thinking.)