I recently listened to an interview with Dr. Ellen Langer, a professor of psychology at Harvard, where she argues that, since we can’t predict the future, worrying about the choices we make in life is pointless.
She explains that when analyzing certain life decisions (e.g., your career path, having kids or not, etc.), most people drive themselves crazy with questions like: Should I do this? Should I do that?
The problem is that we can only live one life. If there were some magical way to live a life with three kids, one kid, or no kids, we could make a comparison, but that’s not possible.
So, just pick something and make it work for you. “Rather than wasting your time being stressed over making the right decision, make the decision right.”
Dr. Langer also argues that it doesn’t matter if the decision is big or small. Just like you might randomly choose between a Coca-Cola or a Fanta, you can randomly choose whether to get an abortion, get married, and so on. In either case, you can’t know what the better choice is.
I think that last bit is nonsense, but her overall point contains some wisdom. It struck a chord.
One of my guiding principles in the past few years can be summarized by this quote from Naval Ravikant (paraphrased for brevity):
There are basically three really big decisions you make in your early life: where you live, who you’re with, and what you do.
We spend so much time in relationships, but we spend very little time deciding which relationship to get into. We spend so much time in a job, and so little time deciding which job to get into. Choosing what city to live in can almost completely determine the trajectory of your life, but we spend so little time trying to figure out what city to live in.
Those three decisions really matter. And you literally have to free up your time to make them, because the world will assault you with its own agendas.
This is why I spent the past six years exploring relationships, career paths, and cities. In a way, I’ve been doing (with limitations) what Dr. Langer says we can’t do: testing, in small doses, multiple life paths.
While this has been enriching and insightful, it’s a process that requires a lot of time, energy, and patience, and doesn’t necessarily lead to clear answers. Years later, I still haven’t found my life partner, work purpose, or home base.
There is a real risk, with this approach, of feeling that you always need more data to make a choice… and never choosing anything at all. You can spend your entire life figuring out what your ideal life would be, and never actually get to fully live it.
So this is where I am right now. Perhaps I do just need a little bit more data and patience. Or perhaps, as Dr. Langer says, I should just start making decisions, and then make them right.
