Doing the math

Just yesterday a friend told me I was heavily influenced by my emotions, and I readily agreed. It's undeniably true. Given that fact, it's odd that when I sit down to make important decisions in my life, I turn to a good old fashioned pro-con list. The funny thing is then anylizing which decisions have made the important-enough-to-get-a-list list. A sample of the decisions that have so merited over the last few years: Going on a vacation with my brother, teaching middle school, taking a vacation by myself to a town I'd never been to, breaking up with a boyfriend, telling my parents about something I would rather hide from them, going on a mission, etc. The thing that I'd like to point out here is that some of these are emotionally-based decisions that most people would make with their feelings. What did I do? I sat down and made complicated lists--occasionally with different colors of pens, or I think once with a rating system (really important pro, slight con, etc. )to add more accuracy, and sometimes going back to make notes on the items on the list or to scratch out items that cancel each other out. While other people are out taking walks in the woods to acertain how they really feel, I am expressing my feelings as columns on a list ("what I want to do" is a pro, as is "what I should do," but "would hurt like the dickens" is a definite con).

Today I revisited an old decision to not do something I had desparately wanted to do, it's not important for the purpose of this blog to know what it was, but some part of me still thought that maybe the math would work out differently this time. I made the list and checked it twice. It took up two pages, contained three different sub lists, each with its own set of pros and cons, and even had a few paragraphs of further miscellaneous factors at the end. I looked at it, I read it out loud to myself. To my dismay, the pros and cons were of almost equal number on every list. All of a sudden I found myself with dilemmas. For a decision of this magnitude, how margin of safety did I need? 50/50 wasn't a safe enough bet, I thought. Besides, if you're going to make an emotional pro/con list detailing all the benefits and risks and effects you'd end up with, you have to make sure that you can live with each and all of the cons. One good con can knock out the whole decision.

But in one way, making all of the lists this morning did help. Looking at the neatly balanced columns, each filled with things I wanted and things I feared of weighty or slight import, I felt very justified in being confused everything I thought about it. Since satisfaction in this matter is denied me, I'll say Hurrah! for a little validation!

On an unrelated note, I dreamed that with a random boy in my ward and my father I went to this crazy new age hot springs resort with very modern architecture, stayed too late, nearly passed out from fear of heights on a "delicate lacy arch" (which is code for a high suspended stone walkway full of artistic but gaping and treacherous holes) and was noticed by a suspicious-looking fellow in a black jacket who proceded to throw his knife at me until he finally managed to get it lodged in my sweater (luckily not lodged in me) and I called 911 and reported him. Then I dreamed I visited him randomly years later and he was getting an enthusiastic divorce and was doing research about where he had gotten the blade, named Yorrick, in the first place. It turns out it had ties to the Chinese mafia. He was just showing me pictures and profiles of the people involved when the dream shifted.

I guess my dream makes about as much sense as my lists. :)