Feb 18 – Decisions, Decisions…
By Shameem Guilliano
I watched an interesting film about our decisions and how they can affect our lives recently. The film was Mr. Nobody if you want to check it out. Anyway, it made me reflect on life and got me thinking about the small things that could have happened, or not happened, that could have made everything vastly different now. A great example of this is the night I met the guy I’m seeing. We met on a Friday night and his friend had offered me and my friend a drink the bartender had gotten wrong. My friend took the drink and I heard a humorous attempt at reassurance coming from behind me – “it’s not spiked, eh” - and there he was. So, let’s break this down:
What if I hadn’t decided to go out that Friday?
What if the bartender hadn’t had gotten their drink order wrong? Maybe she was having a bad day and got a few orders wrong – what if she had a good day instead?
What if my friend and I were standing on the other side of the club?
What if we said “no thanks” to the drink offer and immediately walked away?
My brain could explode thinking about all the what if’s so I won’t go on, but you can apply this to any significant moment in your life. Choosing to go to University was also another one of those ‘what if’ moments. I was adamant I was never going to go to University but decided to apply weeks before the UCAS closing date. I can’t even remember what was going through my mind when I decided to apply but it was the best four years of my life and I’m thankful to the 18 year old me for making that choice.
It helps to break down moments like these so you can truly appreciate how entirely random our lives are. Things seemingly just happen when you’ve made a quick choice in your head. Most importantly, I feel reflecting on this concept makes you think about all the opportunities you’ve missed in the past by making certain tiny decisions like going to a different café one morning and meeting the love of your life or applying for a job you think you’d never get but then getting it, loving it, and meeting your wife or husband there and starting a family.
On the other side of this, it also helps to not think about it at all and just continue making your decisions as you please without thinking about how it might affect your future. A lot of people live like this – in the moment – and get by just fine.
So what’s the best way to go about this? Do you think of every decision and how it might snowball into a life-changing situation or do you sit back, make your decisions in the moment and just hope it all ends up okay in the end? I think right now I’m in favour of the latter, for excitement’s sake.
