What to do??

Outside an icecream parlour are standing 6 teenagers arguing whether to enter the icecream shop or walk across the road to chat over cups of coffee. They flipped a coin to decide and entered the icecream parlour. On stepping inside teenager 1 placed an order for his forever favourite Death by Chocolate, Teen 2 tasted all the flavours that was available and choose a Banana Split Sundae, Teen 3 tells the guy at the counter that any flavour of his choice is good for him, Teen 4 and 5 jointly choose milkshake with icecream to enjoy both Teen 6 is still thinking and deliberating which icecream to order by when all the others have licked theirs to their heart's content.

Our life is like this icecream shop displaying choices for everyone at every step. Some of us find it very tough to make our choices,  some are very clear about their choices from the beginning  and some repeat choices. Choosing from available resources is the art of decision making. A necessary skill everyone must be groomed to develop as early as possible.

Every moment we are in a situation to make a choice. On a Saturday night I can choose not to set an alarm for the next morning or set one and snooze it or decide to up as usual even without an alarm. From the moment we wake up to the moment we sleep choices surround us. So, what are the factors that help us make decisions? Is it our personality? Is it age? Is it vicarious learning? Is it our sense of responsibility? Is it our endless search for rationality? Or a combination of many factors? Yes like most skills, decision making skills too is due to a combination of several factors but most importantly our personality and our life situations.  If we make an attempt to expose ourselves to newer unfamiliar life situations we will understand our orientation towards decision making.

The most important thing is to take a decision. Not taking a decision is worse than taking an incorrect decision if any decision can be called incorrect. I believe standing by whatever decision one has taken and never regretting the choices not considered is the attitude one must develop. This will help one live a more peaceful life. Anxiety is caused due to the confusions and conflicts that torment our cognitive abilities and occupy too much of mind space.

It has often been seen that several life impacting decisions like choosing a career, a life partner, choosing to be an employee or an entrepreneur and so on are taken on gut feeling without too much thought but insignificant decisions like choosing an icecream are lingered upon for hours till maybe the decision has no significance.

Human beings are truly a wonder on this earth with such vast variation in personality that understanding every person becomes more interesting. Pages can be written about decision making skills. But, only one final word I wish to share and that is one must make a choice at every situation and enjoy the process of doing so.