Few tasks are more fraught with anxiety than the art of decision-making. For many, the act of choosing between two options — even seemingly trivial ones — can be a monumental struggle.
This hesitation isn’t just about indecision; it’s rooted in something deeper and more primal: the notion that every “yes” we utter demands a “no” in return. As Irvin Yalom, a master of existential therapy, aptly puts it:
“For every yes there must be a ‘no’. To decide one thing always means to relinquish something else.”
This insight is not just theoretical rhetoric—it penetrates to the core of our being. When we choose one path, we are forced to give up other possibilities, and to make matters worse, we are usually choosing one unknown outcome over another.
In Yalom’s book, one therapist commented to an indecisive patient:
“Decisions are very expensive; they cost you everything else. Renunciation invariably accompanies decision. One must relinquish options, often options that will never come again. Decisions are painful because they signify the limitation of possibilities; and the more one’s possibilities are limited, the closer one is brought to death.”
Decision-making is steeped in loss
This explains why it can be so fraught for some of us—even to the extent of deciding to write one blog post rather than another, or coming to even the most trivial conclusion. Whatever position you take means something is lost. For those of us who feel like there is never enough, no matter how often reality contradicts us, this presents a monumental dilemma, as even the tiniest, most insignificant loss feels too much to bear.
What’s more, if the outcome of the option we did choose was less than ideal, the path not taken can taunt us forever. Of course, we imagine how much better life would be, how much more comfortable, more admirable, if only we’d had the sense to choose B over A instead of A over B.
