Oh right, like you couldn’t see this one coming
Now I’m thinking maybe I should stay in Nong Khai until my lease is up in April. Sigh. Why can’t it be like good ol’ ancient times when you could just slip some cash to a guy who would sacrifice a goat to the gods and throw its guts around on the ground, then tell you what to do. I can see him standing there, long of robe and wise of visage, poking a toe around in the viscera. “Yep,” he says, “the signs are clear. You should…” Then I give him 500 baht and go merrily on my way.
Those guys could make bank if they were still around because I’m definitely not alone in my inability to make decisions. In fact, most people I know are decision challenged. Why do we all react like a deer in headlights when presented with more than one option? That’s not a rhetorical question. I really wonder how life has become so confusing for so many people. It’s like not only can we not judge one option against another but we can’t even decide what criteria we should use to make that judgement. And so we end up drifting along and waiting it out until either someone else makes the decision for us, or the options drop away. There is something fatalistic and faithless about this behavior. I can’t help but assume there’s a question lurking beneath it all: ‘what difference does it make?’
And I’m not sure any decision actually does make a difference. Like my wise (and fun and pretty and…hey Tina, you’re still going to let me stay on your couch in SF, right?) friend Tina recently pointed out in an email – it doesn’t really matter what option you choose because no matter what, that choice is going to become a part of your life and it’s going to be good.
So it’s not the decisions themselves that matter, it’s the act of being decisive, which requires knowing and trusting oneself. Decisions made on past experiences are obviously worse than useless since they’re based on outdated information and just perpetuate the things we’ve become afraid of. To be truly decisive calls for you to not only know and trust yourself but also to approach the world as a brand new person. No wonder it’s so goddamn hard and only seems to get harder as time passes.
And no wonder I’m about this close to flipping a coin to decide what to do next month.
Tags: Nong Khai, Thailand
sandra_101
I could always do a tarot reading for you.
cleaner than guts, though not as much fun.
The one we did before I left has turned out very spot on…remember The Hermit in the 10th position? A blog is coming about that.