making choices

To Choose or not to choose-that is the question:
Whether tis easier for the mind to suffer
The uncertainty and confusion of sitting idle,
Or to muster courage and heart in a decision
And, by deciding, simplify. To sit, to question-
No more-and by a question to say we end
The heartache and the thousand uncertain thoughts
That vacillation is heir to-'tis a situation
Inevitably encountered. To sit, to question-
To question, perchance to discern. Ay, there's discord,
For in that tentative contemplation what options may arise,
When we have pondered every answer,
Must give us turmoil. There's the doubt
That makes procrastination and idleness so long.
For who would accept the anquish and disorder of wait,
Th' chaotic election, the proud man's contumely,
The twists of bewilderment, the mind's mishap,
The indecisiveness of heart, and the resignation
That exhausted minds and restless hearts take,
When he himself might a justification make
and suffer a futile result? Who would agony bear,
To flounder and worry over a settlement,
But that the dread of something unseen in life,
The undiscovered detail which whose result
Destroys the traveler, puzzles the logic
And makes us rather bear those ills we had
Than live with subsequent selections we know not of
Thus uncertainty does make indecisive of us all,
And thus the original peace of comfort
Is uprooted with the uproar of change,
And the unseen of great and powerful
With this their unsettled hearts shy away
And those the moment of happiness. -Elect one now
The hesitant thinker-Friend, in they knowledge
Be clear in thy presentation.

I wrote that several years ago. It's form was obviously stolen from Shakespeare's "To Be or Not To Be," but it's one of my favorite peices that I've written and I think about it often.

I'm bad at making big decisions. I can easily make a decision about what to buy at the store (maybe too easily, I tend to impulse shop.) But ask me to decide about things that impact life as I know it and I'm stumped. I like to be able to predict what will happen next---I'm a planner. Even if it's only in my head, I have a plan about how things are going to happen (and I get frustrated and agitated when things don't go with that plan...just ask Steve). Since I can't predict the future, making big decisions put me in a state of utter turmoil and fear. I tend to ignore the decision to be made or defer the decision making to someone else. I often wonder what it would be like if life was like Jeopardy where we got the answers first and then had to figure out the question. That seems like it would be easier.

If we need to decide where to have Play Group next week, where to have dinner, or what movie to watch, I'm your gal. But please, someone else decide for me where we should live, when we should have another baby, and what medications I should take. I can't the stress.

Thus uncertaintly does make indecisive of us all. Well, Me at least.