We humans hate making decisions. In the business world, consultants are often brought in for this reason. In our personal lives, it's YouTube gurus who supposedly selflessly promise to help us achieve greater happiness. The profit motive inherent in both cases makes things incredibly complicated, and clever marketing only exacerbates the problem. Because I attribute a high degree of self-reflection to my readers, I don't need to offer any self-help instructions here. Instead, I want to discuss why we generally find it so difficult to make decisions. Why we doubt ourselves so often. Especially when it comes to choosing the right path in life.
My generation was always taught that you could become whatever you wanted later in life. Young people who answer questions about their future by saying that their primary goal is to grow up big and strong, healthy and content, or simply happy, are met with critical glances. After all, we live in a meritocracy, and every kid is expected to contribute, to get a job to help sustain our prosperity. Even Sido raps that you should get off your ass.
"Move your ass!" | Photo: Justin Galant
Certainly, a career can be life-defining in many ways. But the meritocratic addendum "if you just try hard enough" should make us question the meaning of this phrase. Today I know how to correct my parents: Not everyone can become an astronaut.
The sheer number of career options available to us, besides exploring space, can be overwhelming. I know this from personal experience. Even at a young age, we have to decide on an apprenticeship or a field of study. This involves choosing a training institution, selecting a suitable university, and often relocating. For my part, I'm privileged enough to always be guided by my interests and passions. My path led me from the Freiburg sports boarding school to the national training center in Saarbrücken and from there to Heidelberg. However, I've deviated from the one path sometimes preached by parents and teachers. I'm currently pursuing a master's degree in finance and am also a competitive athlete. At the same time, I enjoy sharing the knowledge I've acquired. I love writing and cherish my personal life. I believe it's the wrong approach to give young people the impression that they can plan their lives down to the last detail, that they can decide during puberty which career will be fulfilling a decade later. Like any good book, it has chapters and sections that divide the journey into stages.
Each chapter has its question marks | Photo: Simon Gehr
Decision-making can be tedious in other areas as well. While we seem dazzled by dream careers on LinkedIn in the professional sphere, our expectations regarding partner selection stem from the Romantic era. We want love at first sight, despite dating platforms. Yet, someone who swipes for five minutes gets more options than our ancestors encountered in their entire lives. The same applies to technology. Marketing campaigns lead us to spend hours, even days, comparing offers. Ultimately, and we must be honest about this, the screen size of the television, the storage capacity of the laptop, and the zoom quality of the camera aren't nearly as life-changing as we regularly assume. My point is this: contrary to popular belief, we usually don't lack information. There simply isn't one single, better, superior option. Hence the indecisiveness.
Fundamentally, we should understand decisions as an opportunity for self-efficacy. If every decision were obvious, where would we still have the chance to shape our own path? I want to be honest. This has been difficult for me in recent weeks. Life confronted me, and so I had to set a course. A multitude of changes and the necessary readjustment that went with them. Nothing to be ashamed of. Because the only constant in all of our lives is and remains: change.
