How to take decisions in your life?

Before jumping to what I think about it, here is some context why this topic. So, I read something very profound and dark recently around which I am still trying to get my head.

Kierkegaard’s playfully, bleakly exasperated outburst from Either/Or:

“Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This gentlemen is the essence of all philosophy.”

In life whatever actions I have taken had some happiness and suffering with it. In the heat or flow or comfort we chose to look at upside and live happily till the time comes where we have to make a decision and suffer.

Some relatable examples:

• Living with your parents: It feels so secure, you get to see your mother’s and father faces everyday, you get love, and you get warm food. Everything is perfect until one day when you realise you have to move. Moving out of that secure, sweet and loving home involves you crying and going through hard good byes.
• It’s similar to having your favourite food from that shop you love every week or that cigarette whose smell you absolutely love until you see your body slowly is not working like it use to. You can’t climb a flight of stairs without cursing under breath.

I hope you got a gist of it now. In life whatever action I have taken, meant i had to not take some action.

It seems that whatever we choose is going to be very painful. The option is not between error and happiness but between what varieties of suffering we would ultimately prefer.

So, we take decisions in life where we have least suffering associated with it and better chances of being happy. You don’t get to live both options like movies show us, we accept one of the option, and move on with it. We make huge list of pros and cons, talk to our friends, or people who we think are smart so we can take the right decision.

But in the end the most amount of context for your life is with you and nobody else. People will tell what worked for them but it might not work for you. So, you can understand logos people use to take decisions in life but the last say falls onto you. Until your mind and heart aligns, your gut feeling will keep nudging you to be sad, to retrospect, to rethink, to get more data, to do more google search so your cognitive dissonance can dies down.

So, how to take decisions in your life:

Go for what you believe in.