Pathwalking 250
Decide to decide.
I cannot tell you how many times in my life I have found myself at some crossroads or other because I refused to decide to decide.
Decision making is only challenging if you choose for it to be so.
For a lot of my life, I was the King of Indecision. I totally should have bought myself a crown.
When I made the decision to take action for the New Year, nearly five years ago now, it wasn’t just lip service or a soft, easily neglected resolution. I chose an action, and I took it. I made a plan, I spelled it out, and I acted upon it.
Creating and maintaining Pathwalking has been one of the best things I have ever done for my life. I continue to share my journey because, despite bumps and twists and turns and changes of direction along the way, I continue to learn and grow and find more happiness in the life I want to live.
When I was younger, I tended to fear that if I made the wrong decision, I would regret it. What if I chose to commit to her, and someone better comes along? What if I move here, but I get a job offer there? What if I take this job, when I should have taken that job? And so on and so forth.
As such, I frequently chose not to decide. I would hmmmm and haw for a while, and then either make no clear decision at all, or wait until the decision was somehow made for me.
I know there are people in this life who do well letting others decide for them. Or simply going with the flow and not having to choose between many different things. If you can have and be happy in that sort of life, more power to you.
Because I decided on more than one occasion not to decide, I sometimes have wondered just what I missed out on. No regrets, per se, just considering the things I could have done but didn’t because I made no choice or didn’t reach a clear decision.
The thing of it is, by-and-large, no decision is permanent. No decision is so utterly cast in the soul of the universe it cannot be changed. Of course there are exceptions to this rule. When you decided to leap off a cliff you can’t reverse the dive. But apart from that, most decisions, even after they are made, can be altered.
Why does it matter if you decide to decide? Because no path that is chosen will be tread upon if you don’t decide to traverse it. I can think about, research, and map out numerous paths for myself. But until I decide to decide upon a path, it’s nothing more than an idea, and there is no action.
This was why I decided to make New Year’s Actions rather than resolutions. Resolving is an idea, but acting is a powerful decision. I can resolve to lose thirty pounds of excess weight all I want. Until I alter my diet and change my exercise routine or an act combining these plans, all it can be is an idea without purchase.
When we take action, we have generally reached a decision. We have decided that this thing will happen, and so we act to make it so.
Manifestation, I am frequently pointing out, comes from a combination of thought, feeling and action. If all I do is think about something but don’t feel it out and act upon it, I go nowhere. Even if I think about it and feel it out, without action, I am still probably going nowhere. When I act upon my thoughts and feelings, a decision has been made, and manifestation will be the end result.
It never occurred to me before that decision and action really are one. Thinking about losing weight then feeling what it will be like to be lighter are all well and good, but until I have decided to take action to make this happen, I will remain exactly where I already am.
I still oftentimes neglect to make a decision. I still will look at my options, and waffle between whatever they are, rather than acting upon them and deciding. Recognizing this tendency in myself, and wanting to effect change in my life, I will consider that when next I might be feeling indecisive about a thing.
We all can choose paths for ourselves. We all have nearly infinite choices of paths for our lives. The thing is, we need to decide that we want to walk them for ourselves, rather than allow others to choose for us.
It’s also important to acknowledge that sometimes I will decide wrong. First, this is perfectly normal. We all make bad decisions. The key is that I am deciding.
Even when the decision is wrong, action has been taken. Now I have the opportunity for a new action, a new decision is made, and I move on.
Life changes. We change. That is how nature runs its course. The thing is, we can decided if we want to curl up in a ball, wish everything remained as it was and await death; or we can just let it happen around us, and not choose for ourselves but just see where the current takes us; or we can grab the wheel and steer this life where and how we want it.
Sometimes not deciding is still a decision…just not a terribly solid one.
Think. Feel. Act. In action, there is decision. Decision is the difference between choosing and not choosing the lives we most desire to lead.
What decisions do you need to make that you might not be?
GOAL LOG – Week 40:
Diet: Still going well.
Exercise: Fencing happened three days last week, and I got to the gym twice.
Writing: One day of writing, plus the three blogs
Meditation: I meditated four days, for a minimum of at least 6 minutes.
Gratitude: I wrote five things I was grateful for five of seven days last week.
This is the two-hundred fiftieth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.
If you enjoy Pathwalking, you may also want to read my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.
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