Indecisiveness - often the avoidance of risk out of fear. If you don't make a decision, then you can't have made a mistake right? Wrong. Honestly, even posing the question it becomes obvious, doesn't it?
There are several people in my life right now that I am seeing hesitate on making a decision. A couple of them it has been years, or even decades. I hear that they don't want to make mistakes or they don't know what to do, and sure - that's fine. There's not really a wrong way to do things, in my opinion. If you're fine with where you are in life and truly don't want your situation to change, you can try to ride out your current course for a while. why not?
Oh wait, they're not happy with where they are. They want something to change.
Well, while I don't see anything wrong with riding out your current trajectory, the world will only let you do that for so long. There will always come a day when you're forced to take action of some kind. Something always comes up eventually. It's also not likely to be something that you want to happen either. Sure, you can take the traditional approach of asking "why me?" when something goes wrong while you're minding your own business - or you can try something a bit different.
Perhaps, being proactive.
I mean, if there's something you want to do - why wait? What do you gain by biding your time?
Generally speaking, if you have no deviation from your daily routine, then you will sort of just maintain course and every change will be dependent on external factors. If you're unhappy in your job and you don't make enough money to support yourself but you don't ever take any action to change/improve that situation, eventually something external will trigger that situation to change. For better or worse. Could be someone finally recognizes your hard work after all these years and pushes you to try and get promoted. Could be they decide to close up shop one day or lay off people. Tons of different possibilities arise out of that situation, but there's no telling when or how they'll manifest.
In the process of waiting for someone or something else to change your situation, you have also potentially lost years of your life simply waiting. I haven't spent a ton of time researching the subject, but I'd hypothesize that this waiting phenomenon - indecision - is probably one of the biggest causes of regret when people look back on their lives. For example, once you get to an age where you simply can't do many things.
OK - Think about it this way: If I told you I could send you back in time to any point within your own life, what would you do? I would bet that you've got a laundry list of things that you could do running through your head. I also would bet something else: sitting around in a situation you don't like and waiting for something to change probably isn't on that list.
I suppose it would depend on your age as well, because if you're 15 years old there's probably not much you could do with time travel that you couldn't already just do. Which is the answer no matter what your situation is, in my opinion.
If you are unhappy with your situation and you want to change it? Okay then! Look at some options. Set a timeline to make a decision. Try something.
Even if it doesn't work out, you'll understand what did and didn't work about what you tried.
You can generally gauge risk, right? Don't do things that have a high chance of causing death, dismemberment, or getting buried under an inescapable mountain of debt. Well, unless of course there's an upside that makes the risk worth it to you.
Usually the biggest risk you take when making a decision is simply wasting time and effort - or rather not being able to do something else. I don't really see that as a risk personally, because you're already doing that in being indecisive. If you want to change your situation but you're hesitating and thinking about it, you're already wasting your time and effort doing something you don't want to do.
That's not to say you need to radically change your life tomorrow or anything, and sometimes there is a need to bide your time. It should, however, be part of a greater plan: "Okay, well this situation sucks, but if I put up with it for 6 months then I'll be able to do this thing and it will be worth it."
Realistically, I'm not telling you to do anything in particular at all. I'm not the one who needs to make decisions in your life.
I'm just trying to put the risks into perspective. You've got all the control in how much risk you're taking in doing things, with a certain minimum threshold always being in place.
Big overarching point is this: Everything is a risk.
Just because something is comfortable or normal to you, does not mean that you're not risking something in continuing with it. If your life is a long walk on a tightrope, every day you continue down that path is a greater risk than living your life walking down the sidewalk. And if you're strolling down the sidewalk you'll probably get wherever you're going more slowly than if you'd taken a bike. etc. etc. with this metaphor.
None of those are wrong, but just because you're used to a thing doesn't mean that it's the best thing for you.
So do what you want, but in my opinion there's a better option:
Be willing to take a risk. The mistakes you make will not hurt you that bad - they'll be lessons that will form you into a better, stronger person. Be smart about it, do things that you think will have a positive outcome for you. Do things that you think will being you happiness and health.
Want to try something new?
Do it.
Scared/ don't know where to start?
Doesn't matter - do it. Find the smallest, most digestible part of whatever you want to do and start with that if it helps.
How do I know it will work?
You don't, but guess what? Someone else is succeeding at it. Someone who's less interestering, dumber, fatter, weirder than you.
What if I'm not good at this new thing?
You won't be - not right away. Start. Suck. Be bad on purpose if it helps your ego. Get better. Add to your experiences and don't wait for the world to force you along.
You only got one shot to make this life into what you want, do you really want to spend it waiting around?
Thanks for coming by,
- Guurg
P.S. This is all my opinion and I don't know anything. You should never listen to me for advice, ever. Hope you found what I've said helpful and enjoyed reading it though.
Image sources:
https://www.pexels.com/@bentonphotocinema/
