My chronic indecision renders me incapable of making radical changes. How do I find a happy medium?

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Dear Hera,

I’m a real overthinker, and I’m often struck down by indecision between doing things all one way or the other. It’s never small things; this only applies to big, scary questions. Should I be kind to everybody, or should I prioritise myself all the time? Should I accept my seemingly perpetual singleness, or spend my time seeking out a partner? Should I throw my phone out the window or decide I’m doomed to scroll forever?

I recognise that more options exist than, say, eating chocolate three meals a day or becoming an Olympian, but both of these poles have magnetic appeal for me. As a result, I can’t choose, so I just… don’t change anything. This problem is especially bad when I realise that I’m incapable of radical changes, but the reason I want them is because continuing the way I am right now isn’t working for me.

In the interest of getting a degree I’ve just moved across the country to study, I need to manage this indecision paralysis somehow. So I suppose my question is: can I ever find the happy middle? Does it even exist? And if it does, how on Earth do I find it?

Yours,

Vacillating

Dear Vacillating,

You describe yourself as a real overthinker, which seems appropriate because you’re definitely overthinking this. 

Recently I was reading to my niece from John Burningham’s excellent picture book, Would You Rather? The book poses a number of hypothetical questions, ranging from the morbid to the ecstatic. I don’t have the book on me now, but the questions go something like: would you rather be captured by a horde of angry baboons, or drink a teacup full of cat sick? Would you rather live in a noisy houseboat with a goat who plays the trumpet or curl up a cosy badger cave? Even from a young age, there’s a real joy in choosing things and making grandiose statements about who you are and what you love.

However, the examples you provide as proof of your chronic indecision are strange because they’re not really things you can “decide”. Most terminally indecisive people are stuck on practical questions: should I go back to law school, or use my savings to travel? Should I start IVF or open a boutique surfwear shop? They are so paralysed by possibility, they can’t take a step in either direction. They aren’t asking themselves things like “should I be kind to everyone for the rest of my life?” Most of the hypothetical choices you mention are beyond the power of executive decision-making and have more in common with getting a sudden railway spike through your temporal lobe. Even if you wanted to work on being kinder to others, I wouldn’t describe that as a “decision”. It’s more of a general philosophical commitment, rather than a one-time, concrete action.

It’s not stupid or futile to aspire to be kinder. But being kind and prioritising yourself aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. Neither is embracing and enjoying your single life, while also hoping for a great love affair. I’m sure even great Olympians occasionally eat their own body weight in chocolate. 

What I find interesting about your letter, is that you describe these decisions you can’t seem to make, and yet at the end of your letter you casually mention that you want to get a handle on this because you’ve just moved cities to study. That’s like saying you need to get serious about your fitness because the 10K you run every morning is making you exhausted. Moving to a new city to study is an incredibly bold decision, and one many truly indecisive people would be in awe of. You may not have officially decided whether or not to cut down on your screen time, but compared to relocating to pursue an education, it seems unimportant. Your letter is excellent proof that you are capable of bold and decisive action. 

I don’t think you’re really indecisive. I think you’re having a completely normal and developmentally appropriate existential panic. You sound like someone on a quest for meaning, agonising over what sort of person to be in the world. I think this is a healthy and normal agony to have. We spend the first half of our lives aligning ourselves to various belief systems and niche interests and telling ourselves stories about the kind of people we are (I would rather conduct an orchestra of mice than clean a dragon’s teeth) and then the second half of our lives challenging those preconceptions and learning to live in peace with the aspects of our personalities we can’t shake. I can understand your urgency to achieve peace and clarity about who you are and what you want. I think that‘s something that everyone has felt, at one time in their life. But the only way to figure it out is through trial and error. 

It seems to me that you’re in exactly the right place, asking exactly the right questions. Because these questions aren’t stopping you from actually doing things with your life, you should entertain them at your leisure, without worrying about being wishy-washy. Part of the fun of learning to be an adult is simply having the freedom to try things out. Don’t spend months worrying about whether or not to get rid of your phone, simply give it a try. Sometimes the only way to know who you are is to put different strategies into practice and feel your way through. If you want to be kinder to people, give it an honest go, and see what you discover. Is it harder than you thought? Do people react differently to you? These experiences might completely upend your life. They also might not.

Trying things on for size, whether that’s Quakerism or going to raves, is not only the best way to make an informed decision about your time on this planet, it’s also a pleasure and a privilege. Reinvent yourself every month if you need to. Eventually, you’ll naturally arrive at the person you were always meant to be in exactly the same way that everyone else does – through an agonising and non-linear process of trial and error. Hopefully, you’ll make some important discoveries about yourself along the way, or at least accumulate a few good stories. 

Stop thinking of these big questions as decisions you should be making and start thinking of them as avenues of exploration. Don’t get too hung up on being a “type of person”. I promise this will eventually happen to you, whether or not you want it to, so don’t be in too much of a hurry. Go vegan. Join the French Foreign Legion. Take up the saxophone, and see where it leads. Most people aren’t born on this earth knowing who they are, so you might as well have a little fun along the way. One day – sooner than you think – it will be too late.