Choices

A recent career move made me ponder a lot about making choices.after much of soul searching, net searching, seeking expert guidance from friends and friendly guidance from experts; I can observe my mind finally inclining to one of the sides.

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Now that I've started recovering my peace of mind, I can better appreciate the subtle threads that are involved in seemingly so straight forward a situation of making decisions.

The criteria that i initially used to follow was to side with the one that makes me regret less in future.But when there is uncertainty about future outcomes, it's a real challenge making a choice.

One advice that thoroughly impressed me was to choose the one that best suits your personality. No matter where such a choice leads us, there is always a hope for some rewarding outcome. So it involves following your instincts, likings and overall philosophy.A spiritual decision.

A couple of other things I invented to convince myself, I would like to note down for my own future reference.

Firstly, to consider what I don't want todo. Everyone advised me to think about what I want to do in a long term. However, though it is really sensible to think about our long term goals, we can not always be absolutely sure as to which of the given choices will take us closer to those goals.So the wise thing i suppose, is to stick to the present and to rule out the things i dislike based on my so far life experiences, i.e, to go for the choice where the future exposure to such things is going to be minimum.

Secondly, and the one I consider really important, is to go for the choice, in which the output generated will be proportional to the input. That is, when i'm working really hard, i'll be earning proportionate returns. Returns, not just in terms of monetary gains, but about overall personal satisfaction. In many situations, this is not the case and we have to depend a lot on luck factor. Although luck factor is always there no matter what we do, I have learnt to go for the choices where its decisive role is going to be minimum.

I have often realized that most choices finally come to what kind of life we want to live,or rather how we want to live our life. Can't be more explicit here, but something reminds me of what  P. G. Wodehouse once said about his writing style-"'I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a damn … "  

To sum it up in words of Albert Camus "Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?"