How to make a decision

Three ways to follow your North Star

If you're a human being, you might have trouble with decision-making.

The problem is, or at least MY problem is, that I get the external and the internal confused. I start to believe that outside factors are just as important as the inside ones. I take on the imaginary reactions from others as real and even necessary for my happiness, and yes I even daydream about how this decision might come across in an Instagram story.

A couple years ago I listened to this interview with Jon Batiste, which I have since listened to 9 million times, and he described how valuable each minor decision is in the long-term:

When you have a list of opportunities in front of you and all of them lead to different things, I like to think of the example of a compass, and you look at True North: When you’re right up close to True North and you’re trying to find the destination, you may go half an inch away and you can still make it…but if you are 100 miles back and you’re half an inch off, by the time you get to your destination, you’re completely off track. So every decision matters: the small ones are the big ones.

He goes on to say that even a series of quick 5-minute favors for other people can take you so off-path over time that you have trouble returning to the course of your soul.

Since I'm susceptible to other people's desires and projections, there are times when I take them so seriously that I can't tell my North Star from a spotlight in the distance.

Here are ways that I get in touch with my North when a decision is on the horizon:

Consult my past and future selves.

My friend Rayshauna, virtuoso asker-of-questions, once interrogated our study group: What would your 5-year-old self say about your life? Your 85-year-old self?

The only people worth impressing, I concluded. These are the only guides in my life who have compassion for what it's like to be me, and who have the highest standards for me (their standards having nothing to do with constructed metrics of success).

I drew an image of it to keep in mind:

I think of my young self as my truest essence, and my older self as my guide.

When I was 5, or 10, what did I love? What mattered to me? What made me laugh and cry before I learned how to quiet both?

I'm taking care of you, you sensitive little bug

I’m lucky to have a fossil from the mind of my early-teen self, who wanted for me a richness of life and a generosity of being.

She wrote me a letter that I reference often when I feel I’m going off-course, or am trying to remember the right direction:

Dear Adult Self,

I think about you a lot. I wonder what you’re like. Right now, it’s kind of hard having the personality that we have. I hope that you are finding that it’s much easier to be a different, sensitive, emotional, analytical introvert in the real world than it is in high school. I feel like I should have never been a teenager. I take comfort that there are so many poets and authors who were loners as young people and then became famous and normal. Maybe you are now famous and normal.

I hope so many things for you, and for future you. I hope you know at least some Latin, German, Finnish, Russian, and Hungarian. I hope you have read every book on your list, that you have lived in a foreign country, that you know how to swing dance and cook a Thanksgiving dinner. I hope you have learned how to decorate cookies and cake and that you bake bread once a week for the homeless. I hope you knit on rainy days and you subscribe to National Geographic.

Most importantly, I hope you are nice. I hope you give a lot of compliments. I hope you call your mother way too often. Please be a safe driver.

Embrace your twenties, for both our sakes. Decorate your living space like a young Martha Stewart. Stop for Thai food on the way home from work and eat by yourself while watching old movies. Have cute keychains on your car keys. Don't forget that you’re too complicated a person to live an ordinary life just like everybody else. Don't forget that you might not always fit in, but you will have good stories for the book I hope you’ve started by now.

Love,

Your Dorky 14-Year-Old Self

Not all of us have an emotional plea from our high school self that reduces the quintessence of successful adulthood to cute keychains (little does she know I can't drive), but we all have some inner golden nugget of our pure young being, since buried in the cave of societal messaging and someone else's expectations.

What would Younger Me care about? Would she feel at home in this life, comfortable to take a seat on my sofa and listen to my stories?

What would she think about this decision?

A 14-year-old Mari, dreaming of keychains and being normal

As far as honoring my 85 (or 105)-year-old self, I read a lot of biographies and obituaries, treasure-hunting for all the splendors that make up a life that I want to lead. I study joyful philosophers, people who lived the questions and enjoyed their time doing it, even if they never had a fancy job or the specific family they envisioned.

I remember reading a wonderful New York Times obituary decades ago (I've been an obituary-reader since middle school) that began, "She passed while lunching on the river with her best friends."

I thought, In order to die that way, you have to live that way.

To remind myself of my values, I imagine myself winning an award in my later years: What would I want that award to be? Who would I want to hand it to me? When it comes down to it, I truly don't care about selling the most books or getting the most critics to agree that my writing is worth their time.

I'd want to win Person Who Was Most Astonished by Life, the Lady Who Never Stopped Marveling, the Girl Who Made Others Feel Valuable in Her Presence, and the Queen of Enjoying The Process of Becoming.

I'd want Dolly Parton to hand me these awards.

When I imagine that future imaginary-award-winning 105-year-old, and what she would have to say about this crossroads, the decision sharpens into focus: What would impress her most?

Remember what a full YES feels like.

Moving to New York. Committing to my partner. Choosing the apartment with the hydrangea garden out back. Saying yes to doing a TED talk in Greece. Accepting Jumana's invitation to have dinner while she's in town. Ordering the enchiladas.

These were all such easy decisions that I felt the yes with my full body before it formed a word.

You might have heard, “If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.” That's a little too binary for my taste, but it is wise to avoid a lukewarm yes, particularly if you’re in a creative field where a long series of apathetic agreements can begin eroding the brightness of your soul that led you here in the first place.

Lately I’ve been extra attentive to all my invitations, big and small, noticing how a full yes or no feels in my body. My face has no filter so I can tell right away if I'm scrunching up my nose with disgust, or if my smile is taking up my whole head. In moments when my reaction is less obvious, I remember, "What did it feel like when I really wanted what was offered to me, or when I really felt called to step back?"

When it comes to decision-making, it's easy to self-abandon in order to fit in, to not disturb, to be understood, to not disappoint. But sometimes the yes or no are so strong that our whole beings rattle with approval, and I think our 85-year-old selves would be pleased to watch us heed the sign.

Go away.

When I have a big decision to make, a solo retreat has served me beautifully. I rarely come to a clear conclusion while I’m actually on the retreat, but the practice of being utterly alone and supported by a peaceful space and gentle prompts keeps me aligned with my highest values.

The answer soon sprouts from that fertile soil.

All of us are like guitars who frequently get out of tune. Withdrawing away, disrupting our rhythm, and giving ourselves plenty of free time, can tune our strings to their true notes. Then once we return home, we can play and create the way we were meant to.

I'm just coming back from three easeful days at a retreat center with a donkey sanctuary (!) where I did a lot of writing but I also did a lot of...sitting. And I think I pet this donkey for two hours:

Did all that sitting and petting help me make any specific big decisions in my life? No. BUT, choosing to spend my time that way was like casting a vote for what matters most to me.

Later, whack messaging will inevitably get stuck in my head and I will falter to find my True North. On those days, I can remember how good and full and wide and sovereign I felt when I was alone, befriending a rescue animal and walking on cool river rocks and writing at a chunky blue desk, and I can remind myself that any decision that takes me farther from that feeling is one I don't want to make.

Behold: a perfect writing desk, with Saint Martin Luther King Jr watching over the space

*Alert! I’m leading a retreat this October in North Carolina (think: mountains blanketed in golden leaves), which will be a lovely opportunity to dig deeper into your soul through writing and art (zero experience required!)...and maybe even ponder a big decision. I'll be teaching intuitively and responding to the needs of the group so if you attended last year, it will be a different experience this time. I can't wait to meet you. Learn more HERE.*

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