Our Choices Are Not Always "Obvious!"

Many years ago, I read a book entitled ”Too Good to Leave, too Bad to Stay.”

Although it actually was a book about relationships, not about anything else, the fundamental premise can still be applied to a great many aspects of life.

What's my point here?

A lot of times our decision making; the choices we have to make, are not as clear cut as we might like to think. Perhaps people around us see answers as "obvious," but they don't live inside the decisions we have to make.

Sure, decisions can be easy enough when you can look at something and say this is obviously not working at all, and there are no saving graces! Similarly, when something's going great there's absolutely no doubt in your mind, and the thought of ending doesn't even enter your mind.

The point of this particular book was that the vast majority of things we do in life — and participate in in life — whether they are relationships or something else, tend to have far more ambiguous gray areas than they have clear signals.

Sitting in the Gray Zone

So we find ourselves sitting in this gray zone where we can make all sorts of good logical arguments for why we should leave something and go on to something else, while at the same time we can make an equally long list of reasons why we should stay and keep plugging forward.

As I hinted at before, it's easy for an outsider to look at our predicament and say "well, you're just being wishy washy and choosing not to make a decision!"

But is that really true? I have my doubts!

Of course a lot of ambiguity happens because we're only looking at the surface level of a situation. Maybe we haven't truly looked at the long term ramifications of what we're doing... just what will happen in our immediate future.

Of course, that's perfectly natural. When you are living in a state of what I might call "quiet desperation" we're typically prone to looking at what we can do right now to make the pain go away.

Another possibility is that we are looking at our predicament from too much of an isolated state. That is, we're not looking at "alright, what are the alternatives? Maybe it is too bad to stay but if I leave would I be able to put myself in a situation that is actually any better than the one I'm in right now?"

Jumping from the hot coals into an active fire, simply because we feel like we "must do something" is not a happy way to go...

Much of the time, the true enemy is making hasty snap decisions when it comes to things that actually require considerable amount of deliberation.

"But I've already BEEN in this hateful job for four years!"

That may be true, but why? What precisely makes it hateful? Is it the actual job, or some person that makes the job feel miserable?

One of the things I've become very aware of is that we end up in a space where we are so emotionally/psychologically exhausted that we aren't actually very capable of making good decisions. We just want to stop feeling so tired!

Of course, I'm probably not a good one to take advice from because I tend to be the sort of person who deliberates for a really long time, weighing all options, before I move... leaving me with situations where the decision was already made FOR me because I missed the deadline to submit my answer...

My main point here is to not be too hard on those who don't see their choices as "obvious," the way you might see them as the observer. We may want the best for others... but is that choice genuinely what would be best for them, or simply what YOU would choose, were you in the same situation?

How about you? Have you ever been in a situation where the answer SHOULD be obvious, but it doesn't feel so? Do you feel pressured by others, at such times? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.06.11 00:29 PDT
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