Our attention is the fuel that drives our life.

Our attention is the fuel that drives our lives. No matter what people say about what they value, what matters is where people put their attention. ~Ariana Huffington

💫pLoThoughts™ on...

Ever considered that the second chance you've been waiting for happens every morning you wake up? In life, we either let conditions, distractions and others' opinions determine our fate or... we do the hard work: we make decisions.

Like any wholehearted effort, decision-making requires guts. It requires risk and tolerance for uncertainty: "Am I making the 'right' decision?" It requires accepting responsibility for the outcome: "Do I value doing my best or pursuing goals more than I want to avoid blame, shame or failure?" It requires commitment. While many believe indecisiveness is caused by a lack of information (“If only I knew how option X might turn out…”), Columbia University professor Sheena Iyengar found that our agony derives from a more subtle factor:

"The value of choices depends on our ability to perceive differences amongst the options." And what happens when there's no clear answer?! Ruth Chang of Rutgers University keeps it real: sometimes, there's no best option. Hard decisions are hard "because of the way the options relate. In a hard choice, one option is better in some ways; the other option is better in different ways."

So if there’s no best option, why trouble oneself with making a decision? Why not just let the proverbial chips fall where they may? Why not just let life decide?

Here’s the deal: Decisions are the training ground for shaping our identity. In wrestling w choices, we define our values, test standards and become distinct people. Hard decisions are cues to author our own life. In the absence of a best option, hard decisions prompt us to be all in- to put our agency behind a choice. By doing so, we imbue it w meaning and create reasons to commit to a specific course of action. The reasons are maps guiding us to become who we want to be. The course of action reveals a new chapter.

You've got today. Another second chance. Will you drift or commit? Only you can decide. 💖