The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word decision as a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration.
Decision making can be difficult. Whether it is because we are people pleasers, we are indecisive, or we are just scared of making the wrong decision; many things can hold us back.
Michelle Obama said, “You can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.” If we overthink about what could happen or what could go wrong, it can hold us back from doing something that might have made a huge change.
The author of The Map of Love, Ahdaf Soueif, wrote, “So. Tell me. What do you think? Which is better? To take action and perhaps make a fatal mistake – or to take no action and die slowly anyway?”
Sometimes making a difficult decision that may have an outcome you don’t like, but you know is right, is the best option for the future.
We do not always have to do something huge, like discover the cure for cancer or create huge international campaigns against problems like global warming. Keri Russell said that sometimes the smallest decisions make the most change. Sometimes something that is so small, and may seem unimportant, can make a huge change. If you decide to compliment someone or smile at a random stranger, it may turn their whole day around.
The plots to many books rely on decisions made by the protagonist, many of the books revolve solely around these decisions. Despite the decisions that need to be made in the story, the wise words of the author often provide life lessons for the reader. In the book Fall of Kings by David Gemmell there is a quote that says, “Trust your instincts, and make judgements on what your heart tells you. The heart will not betray you.”
If we believe, wholeheartedly, that something is a good decision and will have benefits then it usually is a good decision. If we have trust in ourselves and our choices, then the things we do (maybe without even realising it) help make our decisions good ones.
Les Misérables is a novel by Victor Hugo that has become a world renowned broadway production and film. The creative way Hugo describes the different situations in his novel leave a lot to the interpretation of the reader. The story focuses largely on the French Revolution, so naturally a lot of difficult decisions need to be made; not only in the characters personal lives but in a political sense as well. In the novel, Hugo says, “The straight line, a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man.”
Sometimes the option that is easiest isn’t the correct choice. The hardest decisions are usually the correct ones because they require sacrifice, hard work, and honesty.
