Tags
choices, Decisions, Grey's Anatomy, inspire, Inspired teacher, Inspired traveler, learn, Live, Should I Stay or Should I go, Stay, Thailand, Thailand adventures, The Clash, travel, wanderlust
Decisions… they plague me every day. I have a constant battle just to decide what I want to eat for dinner. Some call it indecisiveness; I just see it as having a very eclectic pallet and live in a country that has a variety of delicious food. Sometimes my indecisiveness gets me into trouble though; I am on the constant verge of second guessing myself to where I’m just plain annoyed by it. The questions and uncertainties play around in my head until I get to the point of surrender: throw my hands up, say, “fuck it”, and just go with it. This is what people normally see in me, the confident and courageous part of me that comes off.
I had no idea what I was doing when I decided to quit my job and move to another country, I was second guessing and going back and forth the whole time until I couldn’t take it anymore. I just said I’m done thinking about this and went with my original instinct and that was that. I’ve learned that everything works out in the end, everything turns out okay, I just need to follow what I am feeling and remember that there is no way of ever knowing what is best unless I try.
A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow, he said, which you can do today. This is the man who discovered electricity. You think more people would listen to what he had to say. I don’t know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I’d have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you’re wrong? What if you’re making a mistake you can’t undo? The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we hadn’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug until we can’t anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying.
~M.Grey
The most exciting part of planning a trip is not knowing for sure what’s going to happen. Rule of thumb is: most things will not go according to plan so learn to be flexible, have a loose itinerary and let the moment guide your decisions. I am most definitely a go-with-the-flow type gal, and as a traveler, I love being so carefree, but I am also human and my inner thoughts like to play devil’s advocate on me. I’ve learned that it’s hard for me to make decisions, but I think my indecisiveness comes from the thrill of not knowing what’s next, letting life take its course, and see where it leads me.
One big decision that I made recently was one of the quickest I’ve done. I decided to extend my contract and stay another semester here in Thailand. It took me less than 12 hours to decide that this was something I wanted to do (I’m getting better at this!) No second guessing, no elaborate pros and cons list, I just had a feeling that my time here wasn’t done. Of course there was a pretty great rendition of “Should I Stay or Should I go” by The Clash that was sung and danced to, as well as some sad moments of telling my family and friends, but I know this was the right decision, it just feels right.
Making decisions is a hard part of life. You never know if you’ve picked the right choice or how it will all work out in the end. But it’s just something that you have to do; let go, make a decision, and hope for the best.
Cheers!