Meditations for Mortals: Day 8

"The whole point of facing the truth about finitude is that it gets easier to spend more of your time on worthwile and life-enriching activities once you're no longer trying to do all of them, or do them perfectly, or do them with the secret agenda of achieving a feeling of security or control."

That first quotation has much to unpack. There are many ways we can be paralyzed about our finitude. I feel like some of them, such as "trying to do them all" or "do them perfectly," are more noticeable and diagnosable. The "secret agenda" though could be secret even from yourself. It's easy to live life without complete awareness. How might I diagnose this agenda? If I make decisions with comfort in mind, it might be an indication. This is worth thinking about more.

"The life enhancing route is to think of decisions not as things that come along, but as things to go hunting for."

Making decisions only about things that fall into your lap is not as fulfilling because it doesn't allow you to define the life you want. Instead, seek out decisions about things that matter to you. Decisions are about defining your life and owning it how you want.

"To make a decision -- any decision -- is to take ownership of the situation instead."

According to Burkeman, there are two rules to decision making:

1. "A decision doesn't get to count as a decision until you've done something about it in reality, so as to put some of the discarded alternatives beyond reach." You cannot just decide it in your mind. That's not a real decision because there's no consequence. Decisions become real with action.

2. A decision can be as tiny as you like. "Baby steps are fine; they just have to be real ones." You don't have to radically transform everything with a decision. You can take tiny steps. He compares this to a scenario to quit your job. You don't have to march into your boss's office, announce all your complaints, and quit to have made a decision. You can instead decide to have a trusted friend over and discuss your feelings.

Decisions come with an uncertainty. Making one decisions necessarily precludes you from making a different decision. We cannot know which is the best decision in the moment.

"In fact, you'll never know in hindsignt [what the best choice might be], either -- because no matter how great or appalling the consequences of heading down any given path, you'll never learn whether heading down a different one might have brought somethig better or worse."

There is no best decision because you don't know how all the others might have turned out. Don't let the exclusivity enforced by deciding prevent you from acting. Relish in the power of making worthwhile and life-enriching decisions.