Like today. I'm a wee bit tired of keeping a stiff upper lip and just smiling when I really want to cry. There are a lot of things I wish and hope for and big fat reset button is at the top of that list. Kinda like this one:
Most of the ones that come to your mind are the big decisions, life decisions that have a ripple effect throughout your life and you feel the repercussions of them for many years after you've made the decision. Ouch. Relationships: friendships, dating, marriage, divorce. Family: kids or no kids, stay at home mom or career woman, parental caretaker or facility placement. Career: stay put, change jobs, change fields, entrepreneurship. Education: college, graduate school, trade school. Financial: investing (too little or too much), saving too little, spending too much. Goals: becoming complacent and not striving, not dreaming large enough, to follow or not follow your dreams. Each and every one of those decisions are major life-changing ones that will impact you for many years to come. And sometimes we get it right. A lot of the times, we don't.
So what happens when we don't make the right decisions and you are almost crippled under the weight of those bad decisions? Of course we know that there is no magic reset button in life, it just doesn't work that way (as much as I wish there was one, I know that there would be danger in undoing things - Back to the Future, anyone????). So what happens?
Sadly, I don't have an answer today, I'm currently suffering under the weight of some possibly bad decisions. The thing is, you usually don't know at the time that it's a bad decision. The decision was polished and looked great at the time. But now, on the other side? Not so much.
It's kinda like being in the supermarket in the produce section and seeing the apples all shiny and polished. They are literally begging you to buy them! So you do. And you get them home, wash one off, take a bite and ewww! It's not sweet. Not even a little tiny bit. Disgusted you throw it away, and grab another one. But it tastes just as bad as the first one. You keep going until you have gone through most of the apples. Then you have a decision to make - do you keep the remaining ones or throw them away? Decision-time. You've already wasted money on the apples and bitten into quite a few to find out that they weren't all that the packaging/advertising suggested. So do you cut your losses and toss what's left or do you keep them and hope for the best? Let's break it down. You feel bad because you've already made the investment and what if the last few are actually good but you jumped the gun and threw them away based on what happened with the prior ones? On the other hand, you've already wasted your money in buying the deceptively bad apples, you've already wasted your time in trying them out, only to be disappointed, so why on earth would you keep the last few and hope for the best??? Not so easy when you look at it, is it?
You might be saying, but it's just apples, just a couple of dollars of investment. True. But what about for the person who didn't have a lot of expendable money for grocery shopping and made the purchase based on the display? Then it becomes a very important decision for them, and they, very quickly, reap the repercussions of a bad decision.
On the last season of Justified (a great show that came on FX), one of the characters talked about the "unknown, unknown - you don't even know what you don't know." That's how these types of decisions are at times - you make what you think is the right decision and you hope for the best. But sometimes the unknown unknowns crop up and let you know that you may have made a bad decision. You will usually find yourself at a crossroad at these times and you pause before making the next decision, because you can feel it in your gut that the decision you make might become a very important one to your life down the line and you want to be careful with it.
That's where I am right now - dealing with the unknown unknowns and facing a crossroad (several, actually, in different areas of my life, but all that will require me to make a decision). So what am I doing? Well, truthfully, right now I feel as if I am almost level to the ground under the weight of the decisions and there have been lots of tears. So I guess that's first - I cried. Have to let it out, ya know? Next, I've given myself permission to feel what I actually feel about the situations, which is hurt and anger. I realize that I am more angry at the moment than I even knew I was capable of. Anger is an emotion that we are taught to repress, mostly because it makes people uncomfortable. But I've given myself permission to be angry. And hurt. Most people don't like to admit that things hurt them, but I gave up that pretense many moons ago. So what comes next?
Well, for me, I will logically and methodically focus on each decision, one at a time, and weigh the pros and cons of each road, and then make a decision. The best decision for me at this time. I won't put anyone else before me during this critical decision-making process, for once I will be selfish. I will also take my time in making these decisions. And I will continue to pray for guidance during this process. That's about all I can do at the moment. Time to go back and recite that serenity prayer that I posted a few weeks ago, eh? I swear a reset button would be so on time right now!
So what say ye - what do you do when you have decisions you wish you could go back and push the reset button on??? Or am I the only one who needs a reset button every now and then? Holla @ Darvi! Have a great rest of the week and be blessed!
