The Long and Short of Decisions

How many decisions do you make?

Some are huge ones, such as the choice of a career, a major in college, or the choice of a mate.

Others are mundane. What do we eat at 9 pm? Where do we shop? What color shirt do I wear today?

For many, they wish they did not have to make so many decisions. (
Life comes down to making decisions.

Even though all decisions are not created equal, the truth about them is. Not all are the same but all have an end.

Some people don’t want to decide. If you ask someone, “where do you want to eat at lunch,” their mental ball of yarn gets knotted. We have many choices which leaves us with no decision.

Then, the myriad of decisions erode our thinking. Car dealers want you to talk of features, colors, seat fabric, wheel trim, and bells and whistles, all before they talk price. The mind is shot and you beg for relief. So, you pay whatever. I hate trying to figure out what plain cream of mushroom soup is…since there are at least 6 variations!)

That idea has led Yogi Berra to remark (in his own fashion), “when you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

Many follow this nonsensical advice.

The problem with decisions is they cut off future choices. In fact, the word “decide” comes from Latin for “to cut off.” When we decide, doors shut and roads clothes.

But beware. One principle holds true in life.

Every decision leads somewhere.

There are no innocent decisions. They all lead somewhere.

We tend to look at the immediate benefit. In the now, we choose comfort over waistline (pass me another piece of cake). Staged houses hide the tax bill that comes in October.

Lot and his choices.

In Genesis 12, he made what seemed to be an innocent choice. He wanted a better pasture.

It was away from the hills of central Palestine and the lush green carpeted the plains toward the Dead Sea. But there was more. Five cities, including Sodom and Gomorrah lay there.

He thought he was choosing grass but his decision meant so much more.

Once there, tents seemed to be passé. So Lot and his wife moved into Sodom. There, among the moral shipwrecks of the population, Lot rose in prominence. He became one of the city fathers.

Then came that day when the cup which Sodom filled brimmed with the last drop of sin. God would allow no more.

He sent messengers to warn Abraham, and then to Sodom to get Abraham’s nephew and family to safety.

But when God sent his messengers to Sodom to warn him, the men of Sodom sought to molest them. Lot’s moral compass had become so corrupted he offered his daughter to a lust-thirst mob.

When he begged his family to leave, his influence was lost on them. Finally, once he left, he lost his wife, and fathered his own grandchildren.

The truth of Lot’s life is that he did not move into Sodom. Sodom had moved into him.

All choices have unintended consequences. And most of those consequences are distant and out-of-mind. Yet, we pay for decisions made years earlier.

Love’s fire needs the realism of premarital counseling. Do you really see what you see?

Wrinkled perspectives should dampen buying or investment decisions. Those who have lived longer have seen more.

Even if it seems innocent today, it may haunt you tomorrow.

So, before you decide, ask three basic questions:

1. Why do I really want this?
2. In 10 years, will this look at good?
3. What is the worst that can happen, considering everything?

Perhaps you can avoid the fate of Lot.