Dealing with Decisions

I had this strange moment in a shower so hot I could barely make out my toes in the steam, where I realized that I alone could make the decision of when to turn the shower off, when to get out and put on clothes, what to do next. Suddenly, in a huge damp wave, I was overwhelmed with the enormous quantity of decisions we are required to make everyday, and the nonchalance with which we do so. I guess this casual attitude is necessary in order to function. I also began to wonder if this is why I sometimes find it so hard to function; a decision so trivial and seemingly small, just trifling little steps of logic like, should I shower now or in the morning, should I study more or sit and write, should I try to knit this scarf while I’m stoned, what should I eat for dinner—all these little things that come at us in huge waves in the span of mere seconds present me with an unconceivable amount of options, the weight of which I may be incapable of comprehending.  The length of time it takes to make these decisions, too, becomes an overwhelming problem—these are precious seconds during which everything is changing, maybe. If I do not complete a particular decision in a particular period of time, the resulting minutes, hours, days, weeks, years, may be vastly altered in a way that I will never understand, and perhaps always question.

What if. What if today I did not decide to buy chili sauce? I would not have strolled down Pedro Antonio, I would not have bought soy sauce, called Laurel, stopped by the house, seen Leon, helped him move, gotten a coffee, talked about writing, belief systems, nudity and shitting, musical festivals, prostitution, drank a beer, bought a specific brand of incense, walked up to the park, smoked a bowl, met two boring girls, met one zany dealer, walked home in the dark, made spicy rice for dinner… Maybe instead I would have studied. Maybe I would have been more capable of studying now. Maybe I would have done better on my test tomorrow. Maybe without my paranoid overzealous worry I would have forgotten to check the time for the test. Maybe I would have missed it. Maybe I would have made pasta for dinner.

I guess being able to make decisions without thinking about it on such a specific, intensive level is about being okay with the way things turn out, or about trusting yourself to be okay in any of the sweeping spectrum of possibilities. In a way, I guess it’s about letting go of all the past decisions you’ve made, realizing that the veins of possibility that once stemmed out from the countless decisions you’ve made throughout the years of your life that you have already lived are now closed, or rearranged into different time frames, and that reaching back to them, imagining them, rolling them around in your hands, in your heart, is useless. It’s about being okay with the good and the bad that have come from the tremendous scope of decisions that you have already made, and trusting that the opportunities that you missed will reappear and that the mistakes that you have made will not; it’s about separating time frames in terms of possibility and usefulness, and making fresh starts in every moment.