Asking Directions
I’ve always wanted to make good choices. I’m the first-born in my family, and like most first-borns, I wanted my parents’ approval. To get their approval, I needed the approval of a lot of other people… teachers, church folks, and other people whose opinions mattered to my parents.
It’s good to want to please your parents. But what happens when you become an adult and their ideas don’t align with yours? How do you decide what to do?
People Pleasing
Do you want people to approve of you? Say “good job”? Tell you that they appreciate everything you do?
It’s not bad to want to consider other people’s viewpoints. Caring about other people’s feelings and learning from their experiences is good for us. We shouldn’t be so arrogant and self-centered that we don’t listen to anyone.
But the trouble is that people’s advice and opinions are different. The experience that your mother and her mother had decades ago are not going to be exactly the same as your experience. It might have a lot of similarities, and much of their advice will still be valuable. But not always. Sometimes people think they’re giving great advice because their advice would have worked really well 30 or 40 years ago… but times have changed.
So which way do we go? How do we get where we want to be? What’s the best path to take?
It seems logical to ask for directions. But whose directions do we ask?
One person says go left, the next says go right, another says go back!
We can’t take everybody’s advice. We have to choose. We can accept some people’s advice but must reject others. And unfortunately, one of the biggest questions we often face is: How will we respond to the people who are unhappy because we didn’t choose their directions? Do we take the advice of the person who will be the most unhappy and make our lives the most miserable if we don’t take their advice?
Daily Choices
I have trouble making decisions, especially big ones. I procrastinate and then second-guess myself after the decisions have been made.
But I have just as much trouble with the smaller decisions. And those are often more difficult because it’s too easy to change my mind after the decision has been made.
My biggest challenge is daily time management. Rarely do I feel truly secure in the decision I’ve made about what to do at each moment. If I’m doing work on the computer or getting a chore done around the house, I feel guilty because I’m not spending time with my kids or praying. It always seems that whatever I’m currently doing, I ought to be doing something else.
This guilt and insecurity make it very difficult to get anything done well. It makes it very hard to be efficient.
If my daughter knocks on the door, in my mind I see my mom’s sorrowful, guilt-tripping look letting me know that she thinks any decent mother would put her daughter (and her interruptions) first. Even if the interruptions (which are rarely anything urgent) will completely break my train of thought and make it difficult to get back to what I was doing a few minutes later. But if I’m spending time with my children, I’m thinking about my to-do list and the things that aren’t being accomplished. It’s hard to be present and focused and truly accomplish anything good when I haven’t completely made up my mind that I ought to be doing what I’m doing.
Conflicting Advice
People want different things. They don’t agree with each other. One says do this, another says do that. My parents don’t always agree with each other. My in-laws didn’t always agree with each other. My parents’ advice and my in-laws’ advice didn’t always agree. Then there was advice from everyone else, from church, relatives, friends, acquaintances, books, magazines, and the internet! Stay home with your children. No, work full-time. Homeschool them. No, send them to public school. On and on the list goes.
As if it wasn’t enough to sort through whose advice to take and whose to reject, people change their minds. What they wanted 10 or 20 years ago might not be what they want now! Yes, people change their minds, even parents. Years ago, they thought there was only one good way to do this or that, then they watched your younger sibling do it a different way and realized, hey, that’s a pretty good idea! And the fact that you spent decades doing it their old way is now meaningless. And sometimes they can’t remember that they ever told you to do it differently in the first place. So, one question to consider with important decisions is: If this person changes their mind about how they wanted things done after I’ve been doing it that way for ages, will I still be ok with my decision then? If doing it this way fails to bring that person’s approval, will I still be happy with what I’ve done, or will I feel bitter and resentful?
People can have wonderful advice. Especially people who have experience doing what you’re trying to do. I’m not saying you should listen to nobody but yourself. You can learn from other people, both from the things they did well and the things they would change if they could go back and do it over.
But you can’t please everyone, and trying to do so will leave you unable to choose a direction. It will leave you doing things halfway instead of giving it 100%. You start to go in one direction, then you turn around and start walking back, only to turn around again. You can’t make up your mind. You’re going in circles.
But how do you make a choice with confidence?
Making a Choice
How can you know your decision will be right? The short answer is… you can’t. But there are wise ways to choose confidently and foolish ways.
First, you have to make a choice. You’re going to have to be an adult about this.
For small decisions (e.g., how should I spend the next hour?), it isn’t worth spending a long time weighing the options. Pick something and go for it.
For bigger decisions, ask yourself a few questions. Weigh the evidence, then give yourself a time limit for making a choice. Things to consider:
- What do you want to do?
- What do the people who will be affected by this decision want?
- Is your decision affordable?
- Is it practical?
- What do you think will be the consequences of doing it this way versus another way?
- Does the person whose advice you are taking know enough about your situation to be able to give you good advice?
- Will you be ok with your decisions several years from now if the person whose advice you are taking changes their mind about how it should be done?
Then make sure you are making a wise confident choice instead of a foolish confident choice.
Choosing with Confidence
The foolish confident choice looks like this: “I have made this choice, and I am going to stick with it no matter what happens. I will stubbornly continue in this direction come hell or high water. I will go this way no matter who is getting hurt. I will never get off this path, regardless of what my conscience or common sense or anything or anybody is trying to tell me.”
Obviously foolish.
The wise confident choice looks like this: “I have made this choice, and I am going to stick with it unless and until [fill in the blank] happens. If that happens, I will reevaluate this choice and whether it is still a good choice or whether I should make a different decision.” It could also include a timeframe: “I will reevaluate this decision one year from now and consider whether it is still a good choice or not.”
Wise confident choices are about making the best decision you can and committing to stick with it unless and until certain conditions are met. It also includes common sense, even if a scenario comes along that you had not thought about when making the decision. Perhaps it didn’t occur to you that a real tornado would ever really be headed in your direction – but that doesn’t mean you don’t get out of the way when you see one!
Wise confident choices do not give up and change direction over every minor thing. If I decide that I will not allow interruptions while I’m working, that means I won’t allow normal, non-emergency interruptions. If one of my children starts throwing up or the house is on fire, believe me, I will make an exception! But even with allowable interruptions such as a sick child, that doesn’t mean that the entire plan is thrown out forever. As soon as possible (or reasonable), I get back on track.
Big & Small Decisions
Bigger life decisions often require us to do things this way.
When were deciding how to educate our children, this was something we had to decide and then live with our decision for a while. It is not healthy or practical – and in some places, not even legal – to decide on a daily basis whether you will send your children to public school, private school, or homeschool. You have to choose a method and stick with it for a period of time. Most people try to wait until the end of a school year before making a change.
When we make smaller decisions, it’s a good idea to apply the same principles that we would use when making big decisions, but on a smaller scale. We make our choice and then commit to sticking with it for a certain time period unless a significant problem arises. And we make sure the problem truly is significant before changing course.
The Maze
The maze of life can be confusing. Stop and consider carefully which direction you should go before running off recklessly in any direction. But it’s usually going to take more than one step to find out if the path you chose was correct or not. Give it time. Be patient. Be wisely confident.