No Big Decisions

I’ve never made a big decision. One might think that buying a house, getting married, switching careers (twice), and having kids would qualify as big decisions but I don’t see them that way.

I see each of these as a series of tiny little decisions.

It took two years to leave my job and become a teacher. I took tiny little steps to get there. Some research into programs, an informational interview here or there, some savings to make sure I could afford the pay cut.

Before getting married, I made the decision to spend more nights at my girlfriend’s place to see what it was like to live with her. Then we moved in together. After that, the decision to propose was almost an after thought.

And having kids, which was a big decision, came after I decided to clean up my diet, exercise more, and remove some other bad habits from my life. My biggest fear about having kids was that I didn’t feel like an adult myself, so those tiny little choices made me ready for the bigger shift.

In all of these situations, there was a fence I needed to get over for the change to happen, a moment of shift. But that hop wasn’t a big decision. I had been throwing all of my stuff over the fence for quite some time. And when all my stuff was over the fence, I climbed over as well.