You know those days when you realize, deep in your heart, that you have an issue at hand, and it's between a rock and a hard place. It's between a rock and a very hard place.
I love decisions, and I hate making them. To do so is an act of responsibility, to bear the consequences of that decision.
To make a decision to eat chili pan mee, for example, when you are sick and having a sore throat, is to bear the responsibility to deal with the consequences of suffering your throat burning.
I hate even more the decisions that deal with the future. How am I to know that I have accurately dealt with the decision I was faced with? How am I to know that I have made the right choice? I've promised myself to always make my decisions with careful thought and to never regret my decisions on the basis that they were the right choices at that specific time with my current knowledge. This promise, of course, has caused myself great stress concerning all my life choices.
Fast food for dinner? Deal with the bloated tummy myself.
Spend my money on clothes? Deal with the uneasy weeks with extremely tight budgets.
Fly across the world to continue my tertiary studies alone without guidance? Deal with all the bullshit that comes along from the public university and homesickness.
I realize how easy it is to let myself go and roll in bed without a care in the world, giving nary a second thought to such decisions and instead go with "what you feel like".
Without a doubt the only thing I feel like right now is to fly straight home into the arms of loved ones and eat all the chili pan mee (and other terribly delicious Malaysian food I hungered for as I scrolled Instagram late last night) I can eat and live the rest of my life without a care in the world, watching TV shows and writing stories.
Unfortunately, that is not an option I can entertain, not even in my mind. Such is the consequence.
What can I do right now but to stop myself from breaking down and punching people in the face? Look on the bright side; look on the bright side... There is none.
It is the unfortunate state of humans that we are able to imagine the future. We make decisions a moment in time, for a future us to bear its impact. It is hoped that this decision will bring a desirable outcome. If you closely examine this process, you will find a lot of inconsistencies.
ReplyDeleteDo you know the future? Probably not. You can imagine it, but you cannot know what is to come. As such, how can you make an informed decision on something that you cannot possibly hope to know? In reality, you can only experience the present, but humans have the capacity to imagine (momentarily living in) the future. How well do you think a decision made in a imaginary state can turn out?
What is a desired outcome? A you in the present, presuming the need of the you in the future. But it is not possible to know. We return to the same logical impossibility.
It is therefore impossible to make decisions for a future self. You can only make decisions for the present you. You can decide what you want now, and you can make changes to experience it at the present. As such, you will realize that there is no hindsight, no correct, best decision, and as such, nothing to regret upon.
Think of an animal, like human used to be. Does the wolf think of its future meal? Or does it know its thirsty now, or hungry, or sleepy? Decisions are fabrication of our complex minds. An imagination. Nothing more. Now is real, the future is unknown, the past cannot be changed.
How can one make the right decision, when none can be truly made?