Decisions, Decisions....

“Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.”

---Steve Jobs

 

 

Decisions, decisions, decisions. We all have to make decisions every day. Most are easy, right? Pizza or Chinese? Burgers or dogs? Red or white? Wait, those are all food-related. I guess that’s where my mind is lately. Can you blame me? I’m job hunting, so there are no crucial work problems to solve, my daughter is all set with her plans, school’s over, and her ducks are all in a row.  Shopping is a no-go, so no worries about which pair of kicking red shoes I need, because the answer to that is “none.” What’s left but figuring out the next meal? Of course, that will likely lead to me having to decide, “Rice cakes, or salad?” for the next six months.

 

Leaving aside the mundane decisions, it is becoming a time when so many of us are facing tough choices. Back in March, when the world went slightly off its axis, sending us all into a toilet paper and hand sanitizer frenzy, there weren’t that many options. Schools were closed, masks were required everywhere, and restaurants were shuttered. The choices then were mostly about which streaming service to binge on and how many cookies constituted a poor choice. My answer to the cookie question? A sleeve of cookies is too many, but one section of the Milanos is just about perfect.

 

Lately, though, everyone I know is facing decisions that are far more complex. From childcare, summer camp, and college plans to jobs, home offices, and finances, the sheer tonnage of what we have to decide could stun a herd of wildebeest. Back in the Spring, it was about getting through each day, each week, each press conference on the latest numbers. Now that we’ve moved into other phases, the options are way muddier, and I know it’s not just me that’s staring into the future like a deer caught in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler.

 

The biggest and scariest decision most of my friends are facing is the back to school issue. I’ve never been so grateful not to have young children. School ended so abruptly in the Spring and having to re-tool and begin remote learning has been a monumental challenge for everyone I know with school-aged kids. At first, it’s all crisis mode decisions, where you just do what you have to, because it’s all there is. Now, there are so many factors to consider. The safety of teachers and staff as well as students, the logistics of buildings and classrooms, airflow, PPE, distance learning, hybrid models, lions and tigers, and bears, oh my! Yes, children need to be educated; we can all agree on that. The rest however is a mess. To those dealing with it, whether from the parent side, or the educator side, my heart is with you. Also, someone said to me recently, “Not every parent is a teacher, but most teachers are parents.” How can we even weigh all the options? What might be the right choice on the job, could the wrong choice for family members.

 

It’s not just about teachers and parents, though. We’re all facing huge challenges that involve finances, health, careers, and so much more. That’s when a particularly wise friend said to me, “Right now, the best anyone can do is to pick the option that sucks less for you and your family, because there are no easy solutions.” They were right. So many of us are looking to the government, to our neighbors, to the scientists and other professionals, and guess what? There’s no consensus there either. One side makes a case for XYZ, but oh, here’s another side that says it can’t possibly be that it has to be ABC. The stakes are high too, and that makes it all the more difficult. I’m usually a person that says, “Pick a lane, for Pete’s sake!” but right now, it’s like the old arcade game of Frogger, and we’re all hopping from lane to lane, hoping not to get run over.

 

There is one decision I have made, and it wasn’t even that hard. Unless someone is truly dangerous or breaking the law, I will not fault their decisions. No one ever knows what’s happening in someone else’s life, so evaluating their choices as they relate to our own circumstances is useless. If someone chooses not to send their kid to school in the fall, or to get a new job, or go back to the old one, I’m going to try and trust that their decision was not easy, not made lightly, and I’m going to support them, with no criticism, no anger, no judgment. That’s the goal anyway. I’m sure that privately I will roll my eyes so hard I see my brain; that’s normal for me though, and normal is what I need right now. Everyone is carrying a load others can’t possibly understand. Let’s lay off second-guessing anyone else. Take care; we are more than halfway done with this year. Just keep going.