Human beings are condemned to be free. Freedom, true freedom, is having to take responsibility, knowing that everything you choose will have consequences and that those consequences belong to you, and that causes a lot of anguish. Because time also moves in one direction, it passes, and when it passes, actions cannot be undone. And that's why important decisions scare us so much. Because there's no going back.
The responsibility that comes with freedom distresses us so much that often what we would like is certainty, a clear sign, something, anything, to tell us what to do. A coin, a little wind, a voice from heaven, anything to avoid the burden of making mistakes. But knowing what will happen, having that certainty, isn't good either. You think it would make everything easier, but it's quite the opposite. It's something that blocks you; no path or situation is perfect. In all of them, there's something good and something painful, and if no option is clearly better than the other, choosing becomes even more difficult.
Why choose one meaning? Forgoing all others? Choosing is essentially assuming a loss, and that has become especially difficult in the world we live in. Perhaps we can't see all our possible futures, but we do live in a world full of options for everything. What happens when there are so many options? Our expectations also rise, because the opportunity cost is extremely high.
We feel that the decision we make must be perfect. Since no option is perfect, we find it hard to commit to anything. For fear of missing out on everything else. Or worse yet, when we choose and it isn't perfect, because nothing is. It's very easy to imagine that any other option would have been better. That thought generates regret, and regret diminishes the value of the choice you made, even if it was a good one. Even if it was a good decision at the time, you no longer see it that way because you're comparing it to something that didn't even happen, but that your mind idealizes...
But then, how do we make the right decisions? How do we face those difficult decisions that distress us so much?
Everything could have been anything else, and it would have made exactly the same sense.
What is the right decision, what is the right path? This is a question we all ask ourselves at some point, sometimes concretely or abstractly. Trying to guess what life wants from us. But the more I think about this, the more I become convinced that there is no such thing as a single right choice, nor has there ever been. Different paths are different sets of possibilities, and each brings with it its own consequences. Thinking there is only one right decision. It's like thinking that decisions and consequences come packaged in perfectly aligned pairs.
But life doesn't work that way. Every decision we make triggers a sequence of events, which intersects with other decisions, with other people, with circumstances beyond our control, and this generates effects that expand endlessly. Some consequences are good, others not so much; some are felt immediately, others take time to appear; some we see coming, and others completely surprise us. Every path is the right one, every path can have meaning. But we continue to cling to the idea that there has to be only one valid option. As if only one decision has true meaning and all the others are mistakes. And often, that is precisely what paralyzes us. We live searching for that right decision when in reality there are possibilities, different paths with good moments and difficult moments, to which we can give meaning. Maybe it's not about finding the perfect path, but about giving meaning to the path we choose to take. When there isn't one option clearly better than another, when all alternatives have advantages and disadvantages, perhaps the wisest thing we can do is stop looking outside for a reason to tell us what to do and look inward. Ask ourselves which options mean the most to me, which one I'm willing to commit to, which path I'm willing to defend, to live on even if not everything turns out as I hope.
As long as you don't choose, everything remains possible. Yes, but nothing is real. One can't live forever in the possible. Life isn't lived in what could be. Life is lived in what we decide with what we have. With fears, doubts, and uncertainty, but also with meaning, commitment, and hope. Even though there is no perfect path, we can always make that path our own. Live it with all our heart. Perhaps, in the end, that's what gives it meaning.
But in the end, before this reflection, I had made my decision that led to this, which was not to decide.