You Are Going to Fuck This Up

making personal decisions is an Impossible-tier task

As you come into the world you are immediately faced with a continuous series of practical decisions about how to live. Blessed with this apparent freedom, you are actually cursed with the inability to make informed choices in any meaningful sense while still being stuck forever with all of the consequences.

The challenges you face are manifold and nigh-insurmountable.

First, you possess imperfect knowledge of yourself. You may think you want something up until the moment you’ve attained it, only to discover that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting.

It is not logical, but often true.

Second, you possess even more imperfect knowledge of who you will be in the future. Consider, for a moment, what your life today would be if you were to dictate its future contours precisely and completely at the age of ten. Absurd!

But: if you are in your twenties I assure you that your ability to predict your desires and abilities ten years in the future is probably not much improved from when you were twelve. And now you are making decisions that will affect your thirty year old self profoundly.

Third, you possess imperfect knowledge of other people upon whom the outcome of your decision relies; and you possess imperfect knowledge of their future state. In light of the last point, especially, marriage is an act of faith.

Fourth, your decisions will change you. For example, sometimes a taking up a lifestyle renders you incapable of enjoying it any longer. Jason Webley, a professional musician, once attended the wedding of a dear friend. Many of the attendees were amateur musicians, and they had formed a circle to play. Seeing Jason, one invited him to join them. He recoiled in horror: “What? I am at a party. Music is my job.”

And that’s the best case scenario: lots of people get sick of their job and it’s even a predictable outcome. Usually it’s a greater challenge in that it is literally impossible for you to understand the meaning of a decision until you directly experience its consequences. Imagine trying to explain the feeling of a romantic crush to an eight year old; now imagine that gap, over and over again, as you hit milestones and thresholds in your life.

Fifth is the usual problem facing decision makers: you have no idea what the future world will be like. You can plan for contingencies but many will be practically unimaginable to you.

Sixth: you can’t hedge on your life. No amount of money can make up for a shattered heart. And there are no take-backs.

“Actually there’s a song—” consider the decisions made by people in this play

Seventh: not making a choice is in every case a choice and the clock is ticking.

Good luck.