One thing that I’ve learned in the past couple years as I’ve gotten glimpses of “the real world” and what it’s like to become an adult, is that decision making is different as we mature and age. By that I mean, we no longer just pick the restaurant we want to eat at, you need to start thinking about a place that everyone you are with will want to eat at. Obviously, it gets more complex than selecting a meal venue, but that’s almost my point.
As we get older, it’s just not okay to make all these decisions based on just ourselves and just think about how we are individually going to be affected. There are so many elements to so many decisions that we make, ya know? Like I truly believe that you need to think about how this decision is going to affect you in 2 weeks, or 6 months, or next year, but you also need to remember this element of your life that you’re changing. If something has been so good for so long, and something better seems to be presenting itself for now, shouldn’t you think about how good you’ve had it? Shouldn’t you think about how switching to this better thing might not be better in the long run? Should we think about what we could be missing out on?
Of course, I don’t mean it’s bad to go on a spontaneous date, or take a random road trip, or just go play in the rain. But I just think I’m at the age now, and the people I grew up with are at the age now, where so many of our decisions affect others, especially others we love. I’m all for calling someone up and asking if they want to go a couple hours away to check out something new or go to our favorite place. But I’ve been amazed recently at how little I feel my generation thinks. You aren’t always going to get that thing back. You aren’t always going to get a second chance. You might not be able to go get that job back or get back into that school. Or oppositely, if you don’t call him/her back, you might miss out on love or a forever friendship.
So let’s say there’s this guy who is really into this girl, they’ve spent a lot of time together, and she might be someone he could see himself being with forever. Maybe she’s moving far away, as in to a different state or a different country. So what do you do, do you follow her or do you stay and hope you find someone better or just as good? THAT’S A BIG DECISION. And it doesn’t just affect this guy, it affects his family, his friends, and especially this girl. Like tis isn’t something that just comes up one day and the next we just decide oh I’m gonna stay here or oh I’m just gonna move across the world. We have decisions where we have to look at the pros and the cons. We have to look at how this would affect this girl either way, or friends and family either way and really think about it. What’s worth risking?
So I guess what I’m trying to say is as we get older our decisions aren’t just which ice cream we want from the ice cream man today. Our decisions don’t just affect us individually and they don’t just affect us in that moment. If you’re put into a situation with someone, you’ve got to think about how this person is being affected too. You can’t just decide one day that you’re gonna leave someone or something and assume they’ll be there for you later. You can’t just assume someone else is doing well with the same hard situation you’re in. It’s not okay to make a decision that’s going to directly affect someone without talking to them. We all reach an age where there’s a line of decision making. I love spontaneity and I love just waking up and making last minute plans, but there’s more to it than that sometimes. So just think.