Make the Choice Before It's Made For You

I see the colloquialism--do the hard thing--floating around every crook and nook of the internet. It's a poignant statement, a distillation of wisdom put into four very potent words.

I don't like to brag, but, I am pretty good at suffering; I am damn good at doing hard things.

And this is not always because I have necessarily chosen to do hard things on purpose, but because  my lack of intentional decision making lead me down paths that became hard by necessity. Inaction can have more dire consequences than making outright mistakes through decisive action.

Translation--if you don't make the choice, someone else will make it for you.

I put the fate of my life's well-being in the hands of many, well-meaning, but inept people. This is obviously an aftereffect of my upbringing--I was often left to my own devices to figure things out without much parental guidance. So as a young adult, I often put my faith in "experts" simply because they were older than me. This pattern of assuming that just because someone was older, than me meant they were smarter/wiser/better, caused quite a bit of unnecessary pain in my life. Again, I have learned many lessons the hardest way--by making some nasty mistakes.

With age does [not always] come wisdom. 

Just because you have lived and had experiences, doesn't mean you learned a damn thing from them. 

By integrating lessons gleaned from experiences, can come wisdom.

As a consequence of this, I can suffer from decision paralysis at times--when there are too many options, I make no decision. I am terrified of making the wrong choice, so, I make no choice. Eventually though, the choice is made for you. If you are afraid of getting fat and old but don't modify your diet or begin to exercise, well, you are probably going to get fat and old.

Making no active choice, is still making a passive choice. 

If you have a lump in your neck (I do) and you refuse to go get it evaluated, the form of inaction can have dire as fuck consequences. Thankfully, I did get the lump evaluated, narrowed down my treatment options, and eventually the treatment plan worked. If I had made no decision, well, I might not be here today. My passive decision, could have lead to an early death.

Eliminating the amount of hard decisions you need to make on a daily basis is a form of liberation. If you don't have to think about what you are going to eat or drink too hard, because you have set a limit on those things, it frees up brain power and intestinal fortitude for other endeavors. 

If you set a schedule of when you clean your bathroom, or kitchen, or do the laundry, those things get put on auto-pilot, and you don't need to use conscious awareness to make those decisions. Putting the "easy" choices on a sort of autopilot schedule frees up your mind to do the things you are passionate about. Like building a business, or pursuing a hobby, getting in shape, volunteering--or my favorite past time--going on side quests.

This sort of decision making--when you delegate the less important choices to a framework/routine--makes life infinitely less stressful. 

What parts of your life can you put cruise control so you can free up time for passionate pursuits?