The truth is…

“Truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive” — Bill Watterson

Isn’t that just perfect? This resonates with me to an incredible degree. I can look back on my life, and trace the winding path that led me to this moment — this current state of mind, relationship, career, affluence, and health that I’ve arrived at. But at each stepping stone in that path behind me, I was unaware of where I’d end up. Looking forward, I am unsure of where I’m going. But when I arrive, I’ll know how the choices I made previously (or am making now, in the present) had me headed there. That’s a funny thing, isn’t it? No matter how hard we try to believe we are in control, we are not. No matter how hard we wish to take control, harness the causal determinism that leads us from point A to B to C, we cannot. Not in any concrete, certain sense at least. All we can do is optimize our choices in the moment. Optimize them for what we value, and what we believe matters most.

Each day we are faced with a variety of choices, some big, some small. Some difficult, some easy. Those small choices are really the important ones. What will I eat for lunch? Will I exercise? What friends will I hang out with? What will I do for my own enjoyment today? They seem small, innocuous, and unimportant. But it’s these small choices that add up to make you who you are, and create the moments that make up your life. They are the ones whose cumulative build up will determine the place you arrive at.

Your big choices, the difficult ones, where you choose between two or more paths end up being the least important. These seemingly “big”, “difficult” choices may vastly change the trajectory of your life. But if it’s a difficult decision, then there’s always lots to be said on both sides, so either choice is likely to be good in its way. In that way, the hard choices are always unimportant. And as a result, you just choose a path and don’t look back. Any path. Some of these paths will be marked with greater fear, greater uncertainty, and greater happiness. These are just the ones I am drawn to. But that is a direct result of my values and beliefs. Others who value otherwise may choose different paths. And as this values-to-path becomes a decision making heuristic that you can understand and utilize, hard choices become the easy ones. The most difficult task then becomes discovering what you value, and what you believe in. And I think the only way to do this is to live. The more life you have under your belt and the more moments you’ve experienced, the easier it becomes to recognize your values and beliefs. So when you get right down to it, the only important choice to make, especially when you’re young, is to live. That’s not too complicated, right?

Now if only I could choose what to eat for lunch…