Decisiveness.......One day when I look back at my life, I might surmise that one of my fatal flaws is the lack of decisiveness in some areas. Sure, when I get stuck in traffic and one side of traffic is obviously going faster than the others, I make a decision quickly to get into the fast lane. When someone at a traffic light approaches me pleadingly asking for money, I make a quick decision to avoid eye contact and not give them any money (see "Why I don't give homeless people money" post). When MJ criticizes me for not cleaning the sink or leaving a mess in our new apartment, I quickly apologize and admit my mistakes.......those are very decisive.
For instance, being an attorney.......so difficult to be decisive in choosing an argument to go with, because I can see the argument from both sides. I think I'd be a terrible judge, it would be impossible for me to choose either side of an argument because I could feel for both sides of the argument. Similarly, when I act as the referee of a dodgeball game, I have a hard time whistling someone out because they seem so sure that they were safe and I would hate to take that away from them, and I would be the only one making that decision as a team, while the whole team would be upset at me for making a bad call.
I think what is behind decisiveness is conviction. If one has a strong belief in something, they'll be settled in their decision. Sure, conviction in a lost cause/ the wrong thing can lead to disastrous results, but not having any conviction (I'm not talking about going to prison, btw, this is the determined type of conviction) makes one not stand for anything at all and always bending to the wills of others. ("Bend too far, and you're already broken." - Lieutenant Daniels, the Wire). Conviction is easy when you're one of a lot of people with the same opinion (Trump is terrible, United Airlines acted wrongfully in treatment of their passenger, etc.). I applaud those people who have conviction in the face of overwhelming odds and popular opinion. I personally think that the United Airlines passenger was partly in the wrong in the situation, and I do want passengers acting aggressively and crazily in a plane to be ejected from the plane ASAP for my personal safety, and I've seen it done successfully on some flights that I've been on. However, the passenger's been rewarded for his ill behavior and paid out millions of settlement dollars, whose costs will be passed on to other passengers I'm sure due to increased flight fare and fees, and also airlines will be discouraged from handling any misbehaving passengers and the next guy will try to get a huge payment from being unruly. It's not great and I've gone on a rant that's gone astray fro the topic.
It's weird, sometimes I agonize for hours over whether to go to a dodgeball game or stay home and do something else, weighing the merits of dealing with traffic, (or choosing between 2 fantasy baseball players I want to pick up but not being able to decide and irking MJ (YOU'RE STILL LOOKING AT FANTASY BASEBALL????) but then sometimes I make huge decisions with tens of thousands of dollars of ramifications or choosing to live my life a certain way for the next few months without much thought- renting an apartment, accepting a job position, etc., paying for health insurance, etc.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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