The Aron Ralston Problem

So, somewhere along the way, about once a year, I encounter the same question. Trainings, conferences, magnets that  Whole Foods distributes, speakers at the yearly event for the the program I volunteer with . . . somewhere along the way, year after year, the following question is posed: What would you do if you could not fail?

Most recently, I encountered this question in a TED talk. (Yes, yessss, I post links to way too many TED talks . . . It keeps me feeling like I'm part of a learning community but somehow magically from my couch. There are worse addictions . . . )

What would I do if I knew I couldn't fail?

I'd write. I'd work for NASA mission control (A secret dream I'm just admitting now). I'd learn how to blow glass (no jokes, please) and I'd make a living by some combination of these disparate but thrilling skills. I'd jump out of a plane and dance and sing and take photographs and hike and climb and swim races. I would master the making of chocolate mousse.

I think that there's a lot of things we all would do if we knew we couldn't fail - flying and making really complicated stuff comes to mind. The question I've been wondering about is: what would we do if we HAD to? What would we do if our survival depended on it? What would we do even if success was unlikely because doing it was so important, or not doing it was reckless and wrong?

Asking ourselves what we would do if we didn't fear or face limitations is a worthy question. It helps us identify the limitations we assume, the weights we agree to when we rule things out. In turn, that leads us to consider if the limitations outweigh the passion we have, or if they are even real guard rails or just imagined ones. It helps us honestly own what we desire to dedicate ourselves to. It makes us speak what most makes our hearts sing.

So, I don't mean to sound jaded or removed from the idea of "what could we all achieve and contribute if we didn't have to pay bills and be grown ups." I watched Sesame Street and listened to "Free to Be" just as much as the next kiddo. I think dreams and believing in them are good and not to be squashed.

But, in the world where all of our dreams and plans aren't as we imagined them, sometimes it pays to ask, "What would I do even if there was no assured pay off?"

I refer to this as the Aron Ralston Problem.

Often, when people refer to Ralston, it's him having been trapped in the Blue John Canyon in Moab for 127 hours before freeing himself by severing his arm with a multi-tool. I watched, transfixed, as he gave interviews in 2003 and 2004. I read the book in 2005. I saw the movie in 2011. So, I'm a bit of a Ralston nerd, as it were. It's not the gore or the outdoorsy-ness. (Though, those things are cool, to be sure.) For me, I'm captivated by how he worked through things, processed, and figured out his options as the full weight of what he was dealing with settled on him. I mean that literally as well as figuratively since he was trapped by an 800lb boulder that suddenly moved as he was descending into a slot canyon and settled directly on his arm, pinning him between the boulder and the wall. He had planned to bike in the morning and hike in the afternoon, so he had only a day-trip's worth of water and food with him. What occurred to him first was that he needed to ration that, and that the water would be the bigger of the two problems. Having not been clear on his hiking plans with anyone, he realized next that even if anyone started looking for him, they would be looking too late, and not know where to search. I'm amazed that he survived long enough to have the choice to amputate because if it had been me I might have panicked and done things to make a terrible situation worse. Even if I hadn't, would I have been wise and focused enough to ration my food and water, recycle my own urine, use the rope and climbing equipment I had to allow my legs to rest and myself to sleep, and kept warm for five days? Of course we all want to say yes, but in reality, would I have been able to come up with all of those strategies while staring at the boulder trapping me and possibly causing my death? I don't know.

Somewhere on day two or three, Aron considered amputation but he also found it was very hard to use the knife/multi-tool he had to . . . uhhhh . .. get in there. He hadn't packed for technical climbing or camping so he had a fairly simple and dull multi-tool. Later  he realized that although the boulder trapped his arm, it also provided the leverage he could use to break his bones. This meant he could cut through flesh and nerves (soft-tissue), but not have to cut through anything dense and hard. The boulder that could have ended his life became the very means to save himself. That boulder, an incredible will to live, and a dull multi-tool.

And one other thing: the ability to do what was in front of him, without any certainty that it would work. 

What I always say when I reference Ralston is this: it's not that cutting off his arm meant he would survive. What's incredible is that by amputating his arm MAYBE he would live long enough to find water and people. He cut off his arm knowing there was NOT enough time to make it back to his car before he bled out and only hoping that he would find water and help soon enough.

Ralston knew he didn't have the water, food, or strength to last another night at the bottom of that canyon. If he had stayed he would have certainly died. But he made a choice that most of us cannot fathom without any assurance that it would mean that he would live. That's what blows my mind.

It's perhaps difficult to imagine our lives without limitations of time, money, training, responsibility. That's what makes the question of what would we do if we knew we couldn't fail an interesting mental exercise. I think it is harder still to imagine ourselves facing doing something where the probability of success is against us. What would be so important that we would do it anyway? Would we have the will to do something really hard, really painful, really unimaginably against our instinct if we knew it might-not-probably-would-not work?

When we watch Ralston interviews, or read about him, or (for some, best of all) watch James Franco on 127 hours, what we wonder, what I wonder, is Could I do what he did if I had to?

Stick a pin in that for a minute and let me ask this instead: how many things do we do with no persuasive evidence that it will work?

This isn't even me writing more about faith or belief. It's about trusting ourselves to go out and do things in the world (which, ok, for many people is wrapped integrally around faith and trust. Yes.) In college philosophy we examined the idea that we actually don't KNOW that the sun will rise tomorrow. It has risen every day SO FAR. But even that overwhelming evidence doesn't guarantee that there wouldn't be an event that could stop the sun from rising tomorrow. We believe it will because it's easier to go on the evidence of what has happened and because so much depends on it. But what about the things we do where we don't have overwhelming personal data to shore up our actions or beliefs?

I know several people who have gone skydiving, but one in particular who did it BECAUSE she was afraid of heights and wanted to push the envelope . . . right out the door of the plane, as it were. Who are these people who step out the doors of planes?! As human beings, knowing the statistics of sky-diving safety and safe jumps has got to be intellectually puny compared to the will to actually JUMP when terror has overtaken rational thought. But people do it.

All evidence from my life of . . . ahem . . . more than 30 years suggested that getting on a bike was a bad idea. Let's really think about biking for a sec: when I look at it rationally, ohmigoodness. It's aluminium tubing connected to two wheels that I'm supposed to balance on while speeding through the open air with moving traffic and/or other bikes around me? Yeah, that seems like a good idea! Moreover, I'd had bad experiences on bikes. Why would I ever get on a bike and ride dirt and single-track trails. And yet, that's just what I'm doing . . . for several hours a week. Also in the realm of sports, this may not be news to any of you, but most people don't like getting hit in the face. But I BEGGED my Sensei to help me come up with an individualized plan to get me from the beginning belt curriculum  in American Freestyle karate to the intermediate curriculum and to prepare me for sparring. I knew at the time there were no other women sparring in the dojo and that this would mean getting hit by men who were stronger, faster, and more advanced than me. Life-evidence would suggest that getting hit isn't fun, but I found some way to ignore that and suited up to get kicked and punched. Um, a lot.

We do other things, every day, that seem so hard if we really think about them. Why would we get up in front of a room of people and give a presentation? What imperative could be so strong as to motivate us to move past our natural fear of being vulnerable to do that? Or perform on stage? Why would we ask that person out knowing that there's just as good a chance that they'll say no as yes? Why would we move away from the people we know and love and make a new life somewhere else? As adults, I can tell you, this is very hard emotional work and takes weeks and months to settle out to where we can see if we landed in the right place with the right people. I did this four years ago, and a friend recently described her experience of trying to re-settle herself and meet people as being, "tired out by the small steady bits of courage it requires . . . " That was my experience for months. I mean, really? Why would we do these things?

And yet, we do. We run marathons and cliff dive and go to new countries. We get pregnant and labor for over 24 hours, we have major surgeries and move far away and give giant presentations and suit up to jump out of planes or get beat up by someone bigger than us. We do things that, out of context, seem INSANE.

I discussed with my therapist yesterday a time, at age 17, where I seriously sought ways to leave home. I was persuaded otherwise, and there was a brief reprieve, but I was prepared, that night, to pack a suitcase and go live elsewhere given some things that were just untenable at that point. Less than a year later I found myself completely responsible for the cost of my college education. At 18, I didn't know how to come up with $7-$10,000 of "family contribution" to college tuition. I'm not sure that 18 year olds are supposed to know how to do this. And each year I would tell the staff I worked with that I couldn't guarantee that I would manage to do it again, and that if they wanted to be safe, they should hire to replace me. And I meant it. I never knew, for sure, where all of that money was going to come from every year. But every year I did it, and thusly I graduated (without pause) in four years having constructed a complicated and rigorous concentration of studies (read: self-designed major), a network of amazing friends, colleagues, and mentors, and knitting together ten or twelve different things I did for money in order to afford life and tuition for that time.

So, maybe the question isn't, "could we do the thing which seems really scary and impossible if we HAD to?" but instead, "how do we know what we can do until we do it?"

I think the answer is, we don't. We can't imagine amputating our own arm, cutting through nerve with what amounts to a pocket knife (that we would struggle to use to trim a stray thread on our shirt), breaking our own bones, and hiking out of a canyon with no reason to believe that we would find help in time. But we also probably can't imagine ourselves doing a lot of things we end up doing until we find ourselves on the precipice of doing them. Although hindsight is 20/20, things don't always make sense looking up ahead too far. Focus in too closely and a pebble can look like a boulder. Step back and it is a minor speck on the road. We can't see the whole picture if all we're focusing on is the point at which we cut through our own flesh and endure pain. We can't see all the things that brought us to that moment, we can't appreciate being between a rock and a hard place and using those surfaces to squeeze ourselves out into what awaits us next.

So, I'll say it again - how do we know what we can do until we do it? In this way, the question of "what would we do if we knew we could not fail" takes on the same flavor. Both kinds of questions lead us to admit that we are more powerful than we acknowledge when we're just going day to do brushing our teeth and making coffee and deciding between chicken or turkey. Much more powerful.

Sometimes at those moments, it's important to acknowledge that failure is possible, and then move past that moment. Ralston describes knowing that he would die someday, maybe even (probably even) THAT day, but choosing that he wouldn't die standing in his grave in that canyon. He wanted, at least, to surmount that. He wanted, at least, to have done what he could to survive past that boulder or be somewhere where his body could be found. He acknowledged that he might not make it to medical attention, and then moved past it and did it anyways. And, when I'm headed down a really big hill on the bike I'm typically saying, out loud (Like a crazy idiot), "I might fall. That's ok. I've fallen before. Ok, this is really steep. I'm doing it. Here comes that tricky turn." Ahhhhhhh.

Game face ON!

Until I got to the bottom of that hill without falling, I couldn't imagine doing it. So, if I based the decision to move forward on what I could see, what had already happened, what I knew, past performance (which involved falling down that hill, getting up and then falling down again) the evidence suggested I should be thinking, NO WAY JOSE! But walking my bike down that hill without trying was unacceptable to me. What that left was accepting that I might fall. That I probably will fall on that hill again (it's a toughy) but that heading down it is better than accepting defeat. Game face on is better than pulling up the covers, trapped by the proverbial boulder.

All of this is to say, it is hard to keep applying with no evidence so far that it is going somewhere. My person said recently that this was most definitely an exercise in faith, which is interesting since he is probably a more spiritual person than I am and I am probably the more religious of us two. It requires faith, yes, but also the understanding while I don't have any data that my job search is leading somewhere, not doing it assures a continuation of things I'm not fond of. If it means thinking about how to take on a part or full time job that is less than stellar (probably admin. Siiiigh) in the next month or so and then running around to babysit, tutor, and do other part time work to "make up the difference" that is what it means. But. Butbutbut at 17 and 18 I had no idea how to support myself and pay an adult amount of tuition each year. And I did that. At 24 I did't know how to spar, and I let big men hit me in the face as a way to learn. At 28 I had no earthly clue what I would do as I was leaving grad school, but within a week of the semester being over, I had a job. Ralston describes the "miracle" of beginning to lose strength from the blood loss and no longer having adrenaline pulling him down the path. Of reaching the point where he'd have to climb up and out and just then encountering the rescue helicopter. But when he hacked off his limb, there was no way to know that would happen that way.

Miracles for me tend to be smaller events, and not always as seamless in timing as I might like. I am a bit of an obsessive project manager, after all, and I do like to line things up perfectly. I can't wait for a helicopter to swoop in without doing the work to get on the path, is what I'm saying. It might not happen as I wish it would, but taking a paycheck-job, or making plans other than the perfect next thing is a chance to remind myself that I have done hard things before. That I have made it down scary and steep roads and will again. I'm really not expecting a last-minute movie ending or to be saved, nor for things to be as dramatic as all that, just to keep moving forward and look back some day and say, "I had no idea I could do that . . . until I did."

Novaturient

A friend posted this on  Facebook recently, and "tagged" me in it.

Why, yes. That's me. I'm going to not concern myself too much about this word not being found in dictionary.com and accept this not only as a description, but a compliment.

It's probably no secret that I'm feeling a bit shocked to not yet be in the next job on my career track. I've gone through a variety of emotions about this from angry about my title and paycheck disappearing to grateful to be released from a job and set of expectations that was weighing me down to optimistic about new work possibilities to pessimistic about new jobs back to angry about the vagaries of unemployment and optimistic about applications to pessimistic about how "the system" (doesn't) work and all the way back to grateful again.

This trip I'm on is a funny ride. It seems to drag out much longer than the tickets I exchanged to get myself a seat on this roller-coaster would normally give me time for. It seems somehow as though I've been around the roller-coaster track more times than I thought I was signing up for. But at the same time, I blinked and it was September. I put in one breath at a time and before I noticed, I was one week away from the fourth quarter.

Roller-coasters being what they are, parts of this ride have been exhilarating and thrilling and even fun while other parts have been harrowing and crazy-making. But like the roller coasters I rode at Busch Gardens last fall, I'm never sorry afterwords. I get that not everyone is an adrenaline junkie, but I kinda am. I used to spar BIG men who were faster, taller, and stronger than me because the rush of getting a strike in was . . . well, a rush. I used to cliff dive. I fully intend to jump out of a plane someday and I love me some roller coasters. (It didn't hurt that I was riding with a stone-cold awesome pre-teen who also loves him some coasters and was stoked to share the experience with me.)

In part I love them because my dad trained me up early to love them. My mom suffers from serious motion sickness and my dad really wanted me to be able to get on rides with him so he started early by putting me on rides that spin and go up and down as soon as carnivals would allow it. But mostly I like these rides because the experience is thrilling and often thrilling+unnerving AND it never fails to make things look and feel different afterwords. Things we take for granted like walking and balance are suddenly not to be trifled with, my senses are sharpened and colors are brighter. I like the quick "boot to the head" perspective change.

This metaphorical ride shares characteristics with real roller coasters. I feel things differently. It causes me not to take things that seem "basic" for granted. I am forced to evaluate things in a different light and . . . while it's scary to step outside the bounds of how I always thought things should be, it's not all bad. For one, as I recently reported to a friend I had not been in as frequent touch with as I'd like to be, "This is scary and hard, but strangely, still happier than I was in my job at this time last year. "

The other thing that is not just "not all bad" but actually GOOD is that I am very, very awake and aware that I'm not just hoping/wishing for things to be better, but seeking change actively. It's not that I was completely unaware of this before . . . I mean, let's be clear. I knew I was unhappy and that things in my world had reached a dangerously, precariously, out of balance place in my personal sphere when I started this blog. But, I had no idea what to do about it. I had no perspective on the whole picture and so I could see good days and bad days, days where I wanted to live inside a box of cheezits and days where salad and chicken seemed reasonable and even preferable, and individual unhappinesses with work or family or myself or relationships. But all my senses were dulled by accepting less, expecting too much from myself, and not seeing the whole scene. Sometimes it takes things getting turned upside-down in order to see the whole picture. This is the use of roller-coasters.

And breakdowns. For some people this is the reason for drugs and mind-altering experiences. And for others jumping out of planes does it. But every once in awhile we need to remember that there's more than one way to look at things. Every once in awhile we need to have the snow-globe we're trapped in turned over so we can see THAT view and notice the things that seem commonplace otherwise completely anew.

Brene Brown jokes about her breakdown/spiritual awakening and how it rocked the foundations of her internal assumptions (roughly 11:20 in this video if you're interested). The joke isn't that she saw things more clearly and made changes to the way she walked through the world, and the impossible track and pace she had set herself to. The joke is that without what felt like a complete earthquake to her, she couldn't have had that epiphany and awakening.

I know the feeling.

My therapist and I have discussed that I was never going to pull the trigger. I had just enough in the tank to turn a vague "break" (one of many I will add) into a break-up but it took enormous piles of data showing me that that person was irrevocably locked into a cycle of denial and dishonesty with me. And I was left so miserably exhausted by the process that not only did I not have it in me to leave my job (even when the piles of evidence that the job had grown  unhealthy for me were so big as to nearly block out all other views), I had halted what (at that point) had been a year long job search because I just didn't have it in me. I was in line to board, but I was never going to get on this particular roller coaster on my own. I needed a solid shove to the center of my back.

This is why my therapist wanted to congratulate me on the day I lost my job. I get it now just as surely as I wanted to smack him in the face for saying it at the time. You know that "aha" moment you might remember having when everything came together as you completed a long algebra problem? I have this  in terms of LIFE on a near daily basis now.

Without a powerful force working to jolt and shake me out of the routine of being ok with things being less than ok pretty much all of the time I never would have calculated up the numbers this way and seen how sub-par had become so normal for me that I felt helpless to do anything but numb it. And as Brene says (and others, to be sure) in her TED talk about vulnerability that one cannot "selectively numb emotion." (15:30)  You can't say I don't want to feel X without numbing the more comfortable emotions. As she predicts, I numbed everything, and that meant I couldn't feel my pain fully but this also meant I couldn't feel my joy. Without joy, I couldn't reliably steer towards anything better. But without my pain, I couldn't be informed about what was truly wrong and wounded and needed to be tended to.

As Pema Chodron says, prophetically I think:

"In life, we think the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem. The real truth is that things don't get solved. they come together for a time, then they fall back apart. Then they come together again and they fall apart again. It's just like that.

Personal discovery and growth come from letting there be room for all of this to happen; room for grief, for misery, relief, for joy.
....

Let the hard things in life break you. Let them effect you. Let them change you. Let these moments inform you. Let this pain be your teacher. The experiences of your life are trying to tell you something about yourself. Don't cop out on yourself. Don't run away and hide under the covers. Lean into it. "

- When things fall apart: Heartfelt Advice for Hard Times

It's hilarious to me (in a head-smacking-palm way) that THREE DIFFERENT PEOPLE recommended this book to me starting from last October . . . a month which we are now a week away from again. This is to say, a year ago, it was apparent that I was in trouble and needed some strategies and that was when I was with-paycheck as opposed to now, sans-paycheck.Wow, Christie. That was time well spent avoiding the truth, avoiding things that would help me. Siiiiggghhhh. (shakes head)

This is my ("fricken" 8:00) breakdown/spiritual awakening. Of course, as Brene calls us to admit . . . it may not be possible to have one without the other. I have to be angry. I have to be sad. I have to have the long, hard, two days I had last week where I panicked, cried, felt crushed by the weight of "what if" and then, ultimately, my face and head a mess, looked at my person and said, "I can't be tough about this all the time." And a few days hence followed that with the difficult question, "Can you please tell me something I'm doing right - I feel like I am utterly sucking at everything right now."

I have to remember the other parts of Brene Brown wisdom about vulnerability and shame (6:00 or thereabouts). "Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change." She also says, prophetically I hope, "Vulnerability is our most accurate measure of courage. "

When I am feeling . . . untethered and scared and dark and pessimistic, there are a few things I can point back to and know I am still better off on those days than I was on days I felt sure and grounded and had a plan I thought I could/should count on. For one, even when I'm feeling pain, I am feeling. For another, the realization that plans aren't always where it is at shakes the foundations of my life. But I think those foundations were pretty cracked and worn from all the weight of the plans I had piled on and on and on. I am still working on separating out could from should, and that is a dark rabbit hole for me to travel through. My whole life has been about what I SHOULD do. When my therapist said, "You have the kind of personality and ability where you could do things that change the world. But you never will UNLESS you make a complete break away from how you've done things in the past, the judgement, and the constant weight of expectation," I cried not from sadness but from recognition of truth staring me down.

Finally, pessimism is an interesting marker of hope. As a very wise friend said to me about my religious musings, "you can't be angry at a God you don't believe in." True story. I'd add to this that one can't be pessimistic about things they don't harbor some hope for. Another way to say this is that even when I'm feeling rooted in anxiety about this not turning out well, it means that somewhere I have some thought that i could turn out as a full bowl of awesomesauce.

Seeking powerful change can't come without fear, and that fear can't be navigated without vulnerability. This is a profoundly opening experience. I feel raw and skinless on a regular basis. (As I relayed to one of this year's bestest gifts, my new friend, the other day, this is not always helped by the fact that I am trying to learn three brand-new things all at once right now.) I make harder and harder decisions each week and am scared each and every time that I am on the precipice of the next choice that I will make the wrong one. But once the roller coaster turns on the track, I don't much find myself looking back. (Perhaps this is the gift of roller coasters - the velocity is so  great that it physiologically prevents us from looking backwards.) This means, I think, that despite all my vulnerability and dark and twisty moments, I am more confident about my core worthiness, my ability to build a life of meaning, and what may come than I was when I was working.

I have learned not just about leaning into pain and being it's student, but also that vulnerable moments are my best opportunities to be honest and brave. I have considerably more courage than I had ever plumbed the depths of. It's one thing to ride a roller coaster, and another to do it with your eyes open. But there is someone else very literally driving that train. So, getting on a bike that has to be powered by me (and perhaps more notably, balanced by me. Eeeeeeee!) is far scarier. The thing about doing scary things is that they leave you exposed. But it's that feeling, it's the "here I go, sparring someone much better than me" or singing on stage (alone!) that are most thrilling. I am most inspired and feel so much via those experiences that are most intimidating because taking charge of them, moving through them, leaning into them, reveals the me under-my-skin that is more powerful, authentic, and lovable  than I could see with my armor-skin on. "Do it anyway" has become a bit of a motto for me. "Risk it anyway," is the only way I can navigate this.

I say this by way of apology to my readers (who are also mostly all my personal friends. Nice how I can kill two birds with one stone, eh?) because my breakdown/spiritual awakening certainly wreaks occasional havoc on my writing. At the moment that I'm most dark and twisty, the tears and swollen eyes and second guessing don't lend themselves much to writing . . . hence the pause in the blog the last couple of weeks. And I can't promise a steady pace moving forward. I can't say what will happen next, or how I'll feel about all of this tomorrow. And I know that for every dose of wisdom and positivity I feel, there's probably enough negativity and difficulty and dark and twisty to seep in here anyways.

What I can tell you is that I am changed by these 9 months, and even on bad days, I know I am changed in good ways. I can tell you that reading Brene Brown's book, The gifts of Imperfection, speaks powerfully to me because perfect is so damaging in my life when joined by it's evil twin judgement (and it is ALWAYS joined by the evil twin. They are conjoined, for sure). I can tell you I should have listened to advice sooner to read Pema Chodron and I know that this won't be "solved" but simply change, and then change again. I need to be able to roll with that and so this ride is teaching me not to focus on much more than today (whenever possible. Ahem. Ok, let's be clear: I am still a planner. I still have a color coded calendar. Three, really. It's a process, ok?).

I know that I have to feel this much, and it has to be this alarmingly, gapingly open and vulnerable in order for me to really change. And I know I want the creativity, the innovation and the change. Novaturient, yes. Powerful change, progress towards a better me, regardless of jobs and title and paycheck, I HOPE.

Choosing Shoes

A couple of nights ago, my person and I were discussing my blog. I was mentioning that one of my friends had reported she reads my blogs when she can, but sometimes finds certain posts to be more philosophical than she's up for. I remarked, "It's not like I'm writing about the meaning of life or something. My thoughts are pretty commonplace."

He smiled a little smile, shook his head, and said, "Wellllllllll, you come close to some pretty significant deepness sometimes. Even when your posts are about everyday things like, I don't know, choosing shoes, by laying out your thoughts, arguments, process, analysis, things verge on philosophy sometimes."

Well, I don't write about the meaning of life - why would I? It's already been covered adequately by Douglas Adams. I do write about the search for meaning, sometimes very much in the footsteps of writers I love such as Douglas Copeland and Barbara Kingsolver. Maybe even more importantly, I write about the things that make me the best version of myself, what's meaningful to me, and ways to hold myself to that. (It's not that I think my life is more important than the bigger meaning of life in general, just that the only system I can really contribute to or influence on a regular basis is ME so understanding myself well is, in my opinion, one of the better things I can do for the greater good).

But I can write about decision making, and choosing shoes. And since my person teased with the "choosing shoes" example, I laughingly pledged to write an entry about shoes.

Today, I was barefoot for most of the day. That's because it's 101 degrees out and my basement is far lovlier than that so I chose to apply for jobs, cook, do laundry, clean my house, and catch up with a good friend before getting showered and dressed and leaving the house. But when I did put shoes on, surprisingly, I did actually have to think about it - all joking aside. I put on a denim skirt, bright green tank top, and black t-shirt to go out for groceries in. I have great sandals that have green in them but, they are brown - not great with a black shirt. I also have a beaded necklace that is dear to my heart because my girl K-bomb made it for my 5th 29th birthday (I turned 29 for the 5th time last year on my birthday), and it has green and BLACK beads. I have a pair of gorgeous black flowered Alegria shoes that I could get away with. Magically, they are not only cute and distinctive, but orthotically correct without looking like old lady shoes. This is important for someone like me who has hyper-extending joints, bad knees, and feet that like to cramp but who also loves to look stylish. Ultimately, though, if I wore those shoes, it felt like it would be over the top to wear the necklace too. So, I went with the plain black flip flops and rationalized it by deciding: plain, black, soft, open air on my feet, and easy to slip off when I come home, which is good since I just cleaned the floors.

So, there you are, sweetie, some writing about choosing my shoes.

But, there's another way to look at this, which is to look at decision making. We all make decisions all day, all the time, every day. what to bring for lunch, what to watch, how to say something difficult to a loved one, Tylenol or Advil?

I'm unemployed, so I don't make workplace decisions like I used to, but my work days used to be filled with selecting priorities, choosing which things to pass onto other departments and which to solve myself, thinking about and implementing action plans, communicating and setting goals with others, and decision after decision of who, what, when, where, and how. But, even not working, I'm still engaged in decision making every day. Here's a quick example of things I've decided, just today:

• Get up now or sleep a little longer? (I slept because I've had some intermittent insomnia lately and need to catch up where I can)
• Yogurt, banana, hard boiled egg for breakfast or protein smoothie with bananas? (I had a smoothie and a cereal bar because it was fast and used up bananas that were a little over-ripe)
• Shower right after breakfast? (I decided to clean my house first and then shower during the hot part of the day as a way of cooling off)
• What salads should I make? (Kale salad and corn salad)
• Take stuff out to the trash or compost? (Compost because it's experimental at my place right now, and I want to encourage others to do it even if it's a little extra effort for me.)
• Mean note or conciliatory note to the person encroaching on my space. (Neither. Something in between, asserting that I think it's reasonable for me to ask him not to use my space, but also mentioning that I'm checking with the HOA on how they treat that space. I don't want to be harsh unless I know I'm right, and even then, I'd prefer to be on good terms with my neighbors if that can be achieved without being a doormat.)
• How specific should I be about my current relationship while talking with an old friend who once wished he could date me? (Neither vague nor specific since it didn't come up in conversation too much and I didn't feel the need to force it as he told me where he was at with dating, his ex and his ex-wife.)
• Should I buy a cookie while I'm out. (No! I don't need it, and this heat makes me less than hungry)
• Should I stop at the liquor store (No! I recently expressed a plan to drink less beer in order to reduce carbs, don't need the calories, wanted to get home, and I'm broke)
• Bulk almonds or packaged (Easy, same price per pound. Take the packaged ones as a matter of efficiency.)
• Should I get gas today or tomorrow? (Today because I could go by the station where I can use reward points and get gas for less than $3.50 a gallon without going out of my way.)
• What should I listen to? (The Nylons, because I'm in the mood for some music that is upbeat, and has interesting harmonies)
• What song should I post today? (For the Longest Time, The Nylons. Because I love Billy Joel, harmony, and acapella)
• Apply for more jobs this week? (No, I've done 10 apps, and since I have to contact a minimum number of employers/job postings every week, it's actually better for me to save some for next week. Especially since I won't do my best work on customizing resumes and letters right now.)
• In playing Dice with Buddies against my brother, I rolled three 2's, a 1 and a 4. I kept the 2's and rolled again, and got a fourth 2, and rolled my third turn, and did not get a fifth 2. So, play as 4 of a kind (11 points with my 2x4 plus a 3) or in the 2's category (total of all 2's = 8)? (I played in the 2's category since the highest I could have gotten in the 2's was a 10 but the highest I could get in  4 of a kind with 4 2's is 14. The highest possible in that category is 6x5 = 30, though you'd be a fool not to play THAT in 6's or 5 of a kind for 50 points. I reasoned, this way, playing in 2's I'm only 2 points below the best I COULD have done.)

What makes a decision good or bad? Is it getting compliments on the shoes I wore? Getting the best price on almonds? Whether or not I end up beating my brother in Dice with Buddies? Is it the outcome of that decision?

Maybe not, especially not if you think about how even small choices can affect other things. I also think . . . it's hard to consider the weight of any decision in isolation. It may have been a mistake to give up the things I gave up on the East Coast to come here for a fiance who didn't put as much effort into the relationship as I did, but it didn't end up being wrong for me to be here. My job with my former employer was the right thing for me as I was leaving grad school, but ended up not being the right thing for me by somewhere around late 2010. My bestest friend everest regrets not taking me to my prom when I asked, but I ended up with the most amazing, sweet, entertaining, funny, charming, solicitous friend-of-a-prom-date EVER. I may lose my Dice with Buddies game, but winning or losing isn't why I play - I play because it keeps me in communication with my favorite family member.

Outcomes are hard to measure when they keep unfolding in new ways. If you had asked me during Labor Day of 2008 if I was ok being here, the answer would've been, "get me the frak outta here ASAP." But, being here has left me stronger, healthier, more reconciled with myself, knowing my limits and how NOT to push past them, and with a much deeper connection with my loved ones, despite being farther away from them. A year from now, though, I'll have even more information and may look at this completely differently, for better or worse.

For my part, what allows me to judge a decision I make as being "good" or "bad" is more about the process I use to arrive at it. Have I considered the important facts? Have I done the math correctly? Have I not only collected the right data and analyzed it, but made sure to collect enough of it? Have I spent the time needed to feel like, whatever happens as a result of this, I won't wonder if I should have asked different questions, or looked for supporting evidence differently? Have I thought about how the necklace and the shoes work together?

What this looks like for me is spending a lot of time writing, journaling, researching, talking, asking questions, reading, and then trying to see the bigger picture (in fine detail . . . I don't want to lose the trees for the forest, nor the forest for the trees) as I stare at a ceiling or chop vegetables into very small pieces. And, as a result, there are really only half a dozen or so things I genuinely regret in my life. (I don't say that to brag, but only to say that I think if you stop looking at ONLY outcomes, it becomes much harder to regret because what's left to notice is process and ongoing repercussions, that are always unfolding, positive and negative, since nothing is a closed system. ) One of them involves some rope, a closet, and my little brother. The other does involve my career. A third involves a dear friend from college and a vacation house in upstate NY. A fourth, a friendship I didn't keep . . and a couple of others are too complicated (not too private, just too twisty and detailed) to write here.

When I look at those moments in my life . . . there were good and less than good outcomes of each of those decisions in all cases. Maybe, the good and the bad are intertwined, or maybe how things work out or don't work out have more to do with how we react and what outlook we take as things unfurl. It's so hard to say at this point in my life, sitting where I'm sitting, wondering what will happen next and trying SO HARD to be ok with whatever that is. Knowing that I won't know what that looks like until my nose bangs right onto a sliding glass door looking out on that scene.

I say this as a reminder to myself, not a guideline for anyone else. Because I'm in the midst of making some big decisions about my life. Where to live, who to live with, how to make that work, what jobs to look for, how to aim towards them . . . going back to school or not? Whole new career or slight shift in tasks, roles and title but similar function? If the universe is anywhere near as hilarious as it has been in the past, I'll walk part way down the road towards settling these things, and then, simultaneously, after stumbling through a desert, a dearth of options, I'll find myself showered with choices, fruit-basket like, wondering if I should eat bananas or apricots or melon or grapefruits, or or or. I am certain that if I decide to go back to school, that will be the moment I get a job. I am certain that by deciding to re-sign my lease, I'll now find myself considering job options or school options more than an hour south of here.

And when that happens, I'll stamp my flip-flopped feet and gnash my terrible teeth but I'll also laugh and laugh and laugh. None of these decisions are irrevocable, and I have more than a small number of friends who are making bigger decisions, decisions with longer-lasting consequences. Decisions about who should parent their children, or when life begins, or how to be at peace with choosing jail for a lesser sentence over fighting the good fight and losing in the court of public opinion anyways, or bankruptcy, or infertility.

My problems and choices are mine, so of course, they are magnified in my brain. This isn't a bad thing. It means I take ownership of them, and do my best to make sure the things I'm doing add up and don't hurt others if I can avoid it. But, I need to remember that in the larger scheme of things, school vs. job hunting, staying here vs. moving is closer to a "what shoes should I wear" decision than an earth-moving one.

In this vein, the very best I can do is to make decisions in a way that I can look back on and feel good about, even if they don't work out the way I planned. Decisions I can take responsibility for proudly, choices that reflect my convictions and beliefs, and things that are as consistent with the information I have and goals I'm aiming for as possible. I'm learning that my plans aren't always THE PLAN and that the way to feel good about my choices isn't to measure my success in traditional metrics, but to look back and say, "was my process sound? Was the data set robust? Was the analysis one I would arrive at again?" Because we never really know if the choices we make will be what we hoped they were - marriage, shoes, haircuts, dinner menus, jobs, colleges, cookies. None of it.

Wear the shoes that feel comfortable today, and worry about tomorrow tomorrow. Make the kind of decisions that you can live with even if they don't work out as planned because not much does. I stubbed my toe in those black sandals, but, I never thought, "I shouldn't have worn those . . . "

Yes, all, this is me, 6 months into unemployment learning that we can't nail everything down in the order and arrangement we would most like, and if we could, it might not be for the best since we can't ever see the whole scene from where we're standing . . . even if we're wearing heels.