Tonight as I sat in my theatre companies' business meeting - and I hold that term business loosely - I started to feel another wave of symptoms caused by the indecisive disease. My mind was wandering about a million other things, like where the HELL was the box of silverware that I couldn't find unpacking today, should I be blonde or brunette, where was my next big paycheck going to come from, what was I going to throw together enough to call dinner when I got home, and several other extremely intelligent and dire things. It came time in the meeting to nominate people from the company to step up and be on the leadership for the next year and as per usual protocol, someone had to nominate you-either yourself or another member of the company.
The first woman had been nominated by a friend in the company who knew she would be great for the position. She had spent several weeks thinking about whether or not it would be something she would like to be a part of and if so how she would go about it. Once she stood up to accept the nomination, she began to share with the rest of the company why she thought she would be a good fit to help lead the next year's season. Armed with extensive knowledge of plays, musicals, dates, facts, authors, language, and time periods, she was your typical straight-A student, overly prepared and 100% certain of every word coming out of her mouth. Not only had she met the criteria and expectation for what was asked of her as a potential leader, she had gone above and beyond and decided to show us how passionate and certain she was of herself on the leadership team. I have to say I was impressed! I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about her hard work and research, her planning and preparation, and though several of the current leadership members struggled to rein her in to a humane time limit, I didn't mind. For one moment in my pathetic indifferent, indecisive illness I was able to see what it must look and feel like to be healthy again-even just for a few minutes. I saw a woman who was passionate about something and wasn't afraid to make bold choices. I saw someone who had made up her mind about something she loved and wasn't intimidated by the hard work and preparation it took to make that decision a reality.
As she sat back down in her chair with all of us regular slackers, a lull of silence hit the room. It was time to nominate a second person to run for leadership and quite frankly that was a tough act to follow. After a brief period of silence, people started to look around the room inquisitively. Eyebrows raised at each other as if to say "you should run" or "don't even think about nominating me!" or my personal favorite the "no eye contact with anyone until you possibly can't avoid it anymore" look. Oh man, so much eyebrow subtext. I started to nervously make weird faces across the room to my roommate to conceal my uncomfortable guilt rising up inside me- and then suddenly, just before things started getting really awkward, a man sitting in the very back row quietly raised his hand. He announced to the room that he would like to nominate himself for the position and a sigh of relief, shock, and curiosity filled the room. To be honest I had barely spoken to the guy so I was kind of shocked to see him volunteer, but nevertheless excited to see what he had prepared as well.
He walked up to the front of the stage and stood there honestly, vulnerably. He told us he didn't have an elaborate plan or a plethora of research already started, or even that he hadn't given it much thought at all. In fact, he confessed that he had just now, literally in that moment raised his hand and decided to put himself up for consideration. He confessed that a month ago when the elections were announced he heard a tiny voice in the back of his head urging him to step up and run, but he had ignored it. Over the next several minutes he shared his heart with the group sincerely about how he has been feeling like he needs to take on more responsibility and commitment in his life. He told us that by adding this new responsibility to his day to day life he would have to force himself to try new things, read new plays, see more live theatre, have conversations with new people in new ways, and hold himself more accountable to others- even in tough situations. He let us in to the fact that no he hadn't really thought this thing through all the way, but he had a gut feeling and wanted to make a bold choice. No matter what the outcome he was now going to have a responsibility to committing to that choice for a period of time and he was going to make the most of it.
Wow, a real life lesson in decision making right before my eyes. Of course! How did I not see it before!? It's not about how you make the decision, it's about having the courage to make the decision in the first place! Moment of silence for that to sink in.
There are always going to be a million ways to make decisions: pros and cons that you factor in, endless research to be done, personal feelings, other people's feelings, places, finances, family, locations...the list goes on and on. Sometimes the decisions you have to make are easy. Sometimes they aren't that black and white. They aren't as simple as charting out a pros and cons list or reading a few articles online, they're about following your heart...and that's a lot easier said than done. But there's hope! Following your heart, or as I like to call it, your gut, isn't really as hard as we think. If we are really honest with ourselves, it's not making up our minds that is the hard part, it's following through with the consequences of that decision- whatever they might be. Maybe you are trying to decide how you feel in a relationship, or what career path to try next, or maybe it's a question of what city you should live in (hint: the Buzzfeed quizzes don't count). These decisions are ALWAYS going to be coming up in life- period. There's no way around it- I checked. So maybe what we should be focusing on is after we have come to terms with what our gut is telling us to do- we stick to it. We don't waiver from side to side and make ourselves sick. We stick to our guns even when it's hard or even when we don't feel like it. Don't get me wrong- if you realize right away that you made the wrong decision and there is still time to fix it, by all means go for it! But if you find yourself in a constant state of turmoil, contemplation, avoidance, or indifference, you need to stop, take a moment, and remember what brought you to that decision or lack of decision in the first place. Trust yourself. You know what you want deep down, you just have to work on tuning out all the other voices inside your head that are telling you otherwise. Listen to yourself and spend some quality time alone to contemplate your thoughts and desires. We shouldn't live in constant fear or anxiety that one bad decision will ruin the rest of our lives, because let's face it- we are human, we all make bad decisions from time to time. It's not the bad decisions that make us feel stuck, it's the lack of commitment to truly listening to our heart's desires and not being afraid to stick it out, even when it's tough.
And hey, if all else fails you can always play Phoebe's game from Friends and rapid fire question yourself with two different choices until you finally just say one...that works too.
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