I am a woman who dies a little in indecision. If I’m indecisive, I know I am morally failing myself, the way you’d fail a multiple choice written driving test for having too many viable options (I failed three times when I was 16). This has felt like a very indecisive time in my life. Even deciding what to have for breakfast has started to feel like a referendum on who I am as a person.
Living between two countries.
Which means I live in duplicate, with zero good answers to “so where do you actually live?” It means my heart works like one of those novelty pens with several inks (I own three of these) — depending on which country I’m in, a different color comes out, and I don’t get to pick which. It means I’ve stood in an airport at midnight, crying a little, not because I was sad exactly, but because I hadn’t decided yet whether I was allowed to be. I had gotten a version of what I wanted, it’s just that it looked entirely different in 3D.
I keep waiting for the moment I choose. I picture it like in the movies: a suitcase gets packed with purpose, a door closes with a satisfying click, a woman walks toward something instead of away from everything. Instead I have a suitcase that lives half-packed, permanently, like it’s rehearsing for a decision I haven’t made yet. It knows before I do. It’s been ready for months.
Maybe the cure to indecision isn’t to decide, but rather to just let things unfold a little more, collect a little more data before we book the next flight, the next move, the “OMG I can’t believe you’re doing that, Nicole!”
But here’s the thing about indecision: you already kind of know. And sometimes you wait so long that someone else, or something else, makes the decision for you. There have been times I would have paid good money for someone to make decisions for me. And that would have been a big fat mistake. Most of the time.
Decisions move the buck forward, and so long as there is a path forward, there is a way to keep existing.
So if you’re stuck, ask yourself this question: What are you actually afraid the decision will confirm about you, once it’s made and there’s no more room for “maybe”?
The indecision was never about fear of choosing wrong. It's about already knowing which decision is right and right was never going to mean painless. It just means yours to live with.
Happy deciding!
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