My gf (not "gluten-free") and recently started watching a Japanese drama series called "Kodoku no Gurume," or "the Lonely Foodie" which is about a Japanese businessman wandering around different parts of Japan sampling different Japanese foods, everything from oyakodon to ramen to yakitori, it's really a pretty good show exploring different small restaurants in Japan (of which there are A LOT, I can personally attest). One of the things the Kodoku Gurume does is get conflicted about what to order, or Mayou ((迷う). I can sympathize.
For me, getting food isn't that big of a decision. If I see 2 things I like about equally, I just pick one assuming I'll always have a chance in some future meal to have the other (instead of just getting both items, like the Kodoku Gurume does). I'm also not that opportunity cost-obsessed about food as other things, like I will very rarely go, "Drats, I wish I had tried that other thing on the menu!" I'm usually too full and happy to over my hangriness to care much, and well on to desert at that point.
But life decisions, those are really big for me. I often spend, days, weeks thinking about a tough decision and agonizing over various aspects (the benefits, the drawbacks, etc., etc.) because I'm (usually) so invested in the outcome. I just spent weeks before the Sin City Dodgeball tournament agonizing over who to invite as our 8th and final player, consulted other teammates to get their opinion, watched various video of the different players to analyze their strengths and weaknesses. Some decisions carry a more justifiably lengthy decision process, like which college to go to, what law school to go to, which job to take, etc., but often I find myself getting conflicted about how to spend the weekend. I have a problem of wanting to be at too many different places at one time and overbooking myself, and typically those conflict issues pop up on the weekend. I try and try and try to come up with ways to make both parties rather than just one party, sometimes with disastrous results of upsetting both hosts, cutting the fun time short, etc. I'll often have made up my mind to go to one event (sometimes it could be a vacation that I'd booked weeks in advance) but then at the last second something spurs me to take the second choice, which isn't very thought out and kind of spur-of-the-moment. To sum up, I have a bad case of FOMO (Fear of Missing out), because unlike food, I feel I have only a finite amount of time to experience things, so I don't want to miss out on certain activities.
Lastly (many of my readers can tune out now), I have a really tough time with fantasy baseball decisions sometimes. I had a really bad season last year full of decisions that I thought about for a long time but then turned out terribly (the worst kind). Picking Dustin Pedroia over Dee Gordon (bad), trading Clayton Kershaw for Carloz Gomez (really bad), trading Manny Machado for Brandon Crawford (REALLY bad). It seems that taking longer to analyze fantasy baseball decisions doesn't really help, at least last year, so maybe I should just save myself the agony and make split-second decisions? I wonder. One big decision I'm facing is whether to keep David Ortiz this season. It's Big Papi's last year, but he's 40 years old and one wonders if he will go out with a bang or just with a whimper.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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