How to Make Decisions

Many people enter therapy because of a decision crisis. Should I stay with my partner or leave them to pursue a better sex life? Should I stick with my tiring but stable job or risk an adventurous new career? Should I cut off a toxic family member or try to make the relationship work?

In therapy, or with friends or family, we may weigh pros and cons and arrive at what seems like a logical decision. This may be rooted in financial or “common sense” reasoning, based on expert research, or even a quick search on ChatGPT. Some may say it doesn’t make sense to leave a partner, given retirement concerns or the cost of legal bills. If I read John Gottman on marriage, he reports that divorce rates rise with each subsequent marriage. Various reasons may talk someone out of a big decision, and yet for many people, the promise—or fantasy—of the “unlived life” remains a powerful force and psychic conundrum.

There will always be unlived lives and unmet needs

One faulty assumption behind our decision troubles is the notion that we can have everything in life, and that life should be about meeting all of our desires. When we feel unsatisfied, we may even feel guilty for not living up to our potential or living life “to the fullest.”

The philosopher Kierkegaard spoke of this when he described life as a series of crossroads. To be human is to stand at these crossroads and to take decisive leaps without knowing the answer. The result, ironically, is that we always choose both paths in a sense, because the road not taken follows us throughout our lives as a ghost or echo. Many clients later in life recall the person they didn’t marry or the second child they decided not to have. There is always an inevitable “what if” to life—an unavoidable companion to action and agency.

Kierkegaard also argues that making no choice—standing on the sidelines—doesn’t protect us from the courage to choose. Many of us feel that not choosing is a solution. It can feel safe and protective: I’ll never deal with divorce or alimony if I remain an eternal bachelor. I’ll never feel the pain of a child’s illness, disappointment, or betrayal if I never have kids.

Choosing in life inevitably sets us up for loss. There is no way around it. Attachments and love can fade or die. Yet the absence of choice is also a choice—not to participate, and thus not to engage in the human experience. Protection, safety, and security may serve one part of us, but as Kierkegaard says, this person also “loses himself.” For him, avoiding choice is a way of avoiding existence itself.

When we don’t choose, we often allow life to move us forward, carried by the flow of things, submitting to the will of the collective or dominant spirit. Over time, this can lead to resentment against life itself—that it hasn’t delivered anything, that it has simply aged us. Stepping forward and choosing can thus be an antidote to the feeling of “not living,” of living what some call a “half-life” or just “going through the motions.”

When intention and choice are made on daily and weekly levels, we often feel more engaged, more connected, and more in control—regardless of whether we make the “right” choice or not.

If it’s a real issue, choosing should not be a problem

Another way to approach choice is to see it as a problem only if it’s not a “real” choice. If the choice actually matters, there shouldn’t be any question as to the right move. If it doesn’t matter, then either option will be fine. In other words: When a genuine, significant decision arises, there is, so to speak, no choice.

Take relationships: Eventually, if a partnership is truly dysfunctional, it becomes uninhabitable. When this happens, the decision is automatic—it dissolves. On the other hand, if there is doubt or fantasies about others but still motivation and hope within the relationship, the ambivalence may be about an unwillingness or hesitancy to “do the work” to make it better.

Another example: a student debating whether to go into finance or the arts. Eventually, the decision will reveal itself. If you choose finance but are “meant” to be an artist, this will become clear over time—you will outgrow finance.

From this point of view, you can relax about making choices, because your authentic self will inevitably pull you one way or another. For some, even the “wrong decision” may be necessary proof. Living with someone who is banal and under-stimulating for 10 years may confirm the importance of a later partner. We sometimes only know love through its absence.

Decision-Making Essential Reads

How to Stop Falling for the Wrong Things

How Financial Anxiety Clouds Your Brain

Even indecision can be seen positively in the long term. I have often heard clients, late in life, realize they have been living a half-life. Their late-life choices then become obvious—taking risks after years of hesitation and disappointment. From this angle, their hesitancy was not the wrong choice, but the necessary “non-choice” that led them to a more authentic present.