Indecision

I consider myself to be, generally, a pretty decisive person.  When faced with a decision, I investigate and identify different options, put them through a pros/cons comparison, and make up my mind about how to proceed.  Most of the time, I can live with the decisions I’ve made and work through the bumps that arise that I may not have considered.  I made pretty straightforward decisions about my life partner, the purchase of my house and other plans that require a sustained level of commitment over time.

Other times, though, I stall out as I hit a wall of indecision.  What surprises me are the issues where indecision seems overwhelming.  In the big scheme of things, they really are pretty inconsequential.  For example,  I’m surprised at how much time I spent trying to decide about the topic to use for today’s blog post….I  went back and forth over this or that topic before realizing what the topic should obviously be!  It happens with my stitching, too.  I have many, many needlework projects in progress…how hard could it be to pick one out to stitch on for the evening?  Yet, in my mind, I’ll debate which project to work on and get so consumed with the debate that the day draws to a close and I haven’t stitched one stitch all evening.

Such is the way with analysis paralysis…in order to avoid drawing a conclusion and making a decision, one instead looks at other ways to slice and dice the information and the decision gets delayed.  I have no idea why some decisions come easily and others are so hard.  I’m reminded of a line in the song “Damaged Goods” by my favorite folk singer/songwriter, Christine Lavin:  “…she’s always second-guessing, look at her hesitate, the littlest decisions are the hardest to make….”   

Whew!  Made it through today’s post.  I sure hope tomorrow’s topic comes to me a little more easily!