We take some words for granted. A word like “decision,” referring to something we do all the time. De-cision making is a learned skill.
Have you thought about the origin of this word, “De-cision”?
As with so many English words, it comes from a Latin root word, caedere, meaning “cut.”
In English (long story short), this has come down as the root form of “-cision.”
Consider some words formed by adding a prefix to this root:
- Pre-cision (to cut exactly)
- In-cision (to cut into)
Even the word “scissors” comes from the same root. And that’s why we refer to them as a “pair” of scissors. Each blade is a scissor, or a cutter, and they work together in a pair as a cutting instrument. (So is that why we refer to a “pair” of pants? Is each leg a “pant”? No idea)
- De-cision = to “cut away”
To make a de-cision is to cut away the extraneous, the things that complicate a situation.
Down to the core of what actually needs doing.
This involves discipline and focus–to know what you want and is most important in life. To know what gets trimmed or peeled back to reveal the core of what is most necessary in a given situation.
Sometimes the cutting or trimming hurts. It may penetrate into things we think are important, but still aren’t essential.
We can grow weary of de-cisions, for sure. One of my good friends, Jason Clark, writes a blog that I recommend to you. In a recent post he writes of the very real phenomenon of “Decision Fatigue.” He notes how this has become especially acute during this season of COVID. Many of us are feeling this.
Even so, de-cisions are necessary, fatigue or not.
Every season of life involves its own kind of decisions.
In high school, teenagers face decisions about what comes after graduation and their official entry into “adulthood.” To go to college, get a job (and what kind of job) join the military, save up and travel, or just sit in your mom’s basement–it seems that the options are wide open–and yet, often at that age young people don’t have the experience or wisdom to effectively deal with such options. Or to imagine where they will lead.
Similarly, college graduates have decisions about career opportunities, or to go to graduate school, whether or when to get married. And to whom. Couples make decisions about having children, buying houses, and all kinds of steps in life.
Speaking of which, it can seem like all of this is right out of the Game of Life®. At the beginning, you make decisions about college or career, which career, getting married, buying life insurance, auto insurance, and all the other “necessaries” of a normal life. Later in the Game, players experience some of the benefits, or consequences, of those earlier choices.
Just like in real life.
Things seem to build up on one another over time.
Most of us make some decisions along the way that we may regret. Some people proudly say that they have lived their life with “no regrets.” I can’t help but wonder if a life without a few regrets has actually been lived.
But we adjust for those things, and continue to weave and wend our way through life, hopefully finding purpose and joy in the paths we choose.
Midlife (and even later life too), brings new kinds of decisions. More cutting and trimming to get to the core of what needs to be done.
Many of the decisions young people make are practical. Things like school, jobs, finances, relationships.
In midlife, we may still have some of those kinds of decisions, but at another level. We’ve been living into our earlier decisions for years. Now we build on them, or perhaps re-negotiate them in a different direction.
In midlife, many of us are generally well-established in the foundational things. Now we need to make decisions about who and what we are going to be in the second half of our lives. These kinds of decisions require cutting, trimming, and penetrating. Slicing through decades of baggage we’ve accrued. Assumptions about who we are in contrast with who we once hoped to be.
Many adults become empty-nesters in their 40s or 50s. After so many years of raising and caring for kids, that becomes a core part of who we are. Once the task is mostly done–now what are we going to do with our lives for the next thirty or forty years? We will always be parents to our children, but when they’re grown, and the next is empty, new identities apart from being “mom” or “dad” need to take shape. Some trimming and cutting away is necessary to make this happen.
Other de-cisions face the adult in midlife…
This may involve big-ticket things such as career advancement or change. Some will lose their jobs in midlife and face decisions about finding work, or starting a new career. It may involve decisions about going back to school, or moving to a new location. Some adults experience divorce, and the host of decisions that follow that big De-cision. Others face decisions about re-negotiating life within a marriage or a relationship, and moving forward with it into the next season.
Midlife often involves de-cisions regarding care and support of elderly parents. Or assuming responsibility for decisions when they pass away. Or medical decisions for oneself or for family members.
Some de-cisions may seem smaller, but still are consequential. Lifestyle decisions about losing some weight and getting fit, or adopting some new habits or hobbies. Financial decisions, writing a will, planning for retirement–on and on, there seems no end to decisions, regardless of the season of life.
And making decisions is hard. It requires effort, prioritizing, sometimes cutting away the baggage accrued by earlier decisions.
Good decision-making, like critical thinking, is a learned skill.
Here are ten tips that may help with whatever decisions you face:
- Get control of the “Lizard Brain.” This is the part of our brain that responds with aggression or fear, with “fight or flight.” It functions from emotion. The Lizard Brain saves our lives in perilous situations, like if you’re attacked by a lion. But it is not the part of our brain most helpful in making regular de-cisions. For this we need a more calm and rational approach. Family Systems theory uses the term “self-differentiation.” This is the ability to set apart your own self, with your thoughts and feelings, from the thoughts, feelings, and priorities of others. To make good decisions, you must become a student of yourself.
- Give yourself time and space, when possible. It is hard to make good decisions when under stress and pressure. At the same time, don’t procrastinate. Neglecting to decide is often to decide.
- Study the situation, and weigh out pros and cons. It may help to actually write these out. Make two columns on a page, one for “Pro” and the other for “Con.” Which list is longer? Which list was easier to come up with? Do any of the pros and cons need testing or vetting?
- Create a list of other alternatives. The first thing that comes to mind often is not the best.
- Ask yourself, “What is the best thing that could happen if I choose this? What is the worst thing that could happen?”
- Perhaps something is clouding your perspective, that needs cutting or trimming away (de-cisioned). What baggage needs trimming away, that you just need to let go of? Write these down.
- Get input from others, as needed. There may be gaps in your thinking, or ways that you are wrong, that only other trusted voices can see.
- Test, or prototype your options, if it is possible to do so. Perhaps you can “try out” something before committing to it entirely.
- Once you make a decision, create an action plan so that you really do it. Tell someone else, and ask for support or accountability.
- After a time, revisit your decision, evaluate it, and make adjustments as necessary.
________________________
You know all those things you’ve always wanted to do?
You should go do them!
(E.J. Lamprey)
Related posts: https://cliffordberger.com/the-invisible-man-staying-relevant-and-visible-in-midlife/
