Man, sometimes life just throws you into a corner, right? You’re standing there, two paths laid out, and both of them look equally like a good idea, or equally like a total disaster. That’s where I found myself, not too long ago, staring down what felt like one of the biggest choices of my life. It was a proper deadlock, a real head-scratcher that kept me up more nights than I care to admit. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, trying to figure out if I should pack everything up and chase this wild new opportunity across the country, or stay put, comfortable, but maybe a little bored with what I had going on.
My old man always said, “Son, don’t let indecision be your biggest decision.” And man, was I letting it. My days turned into this endless loop of thinking. I’d wake up, mentally run through the pros and cons of staying, then flip it, and do the same for going. It was like I had blinders on, unable to see anything clearly. All I could see were these two big, opposing forces, pulling me apart. I talked to friends, I talked to family. Everyone had an opinion, which just made things worse, because each opinion would momentarily sway me, only for me to swing back to the other side a few hours later. It was a mental ping-pong match, and I was the ball.
I felt it, too, in my body. That constant clenching in my gut, the way I’d zone out mid-conversation, just lost in my own thoughts. Sleep became a myth. I’d lie there, staring at the ceiling, replaying every single conversation, every little detail about both options. It was exhausting, truly draining. I was so wrapped up in trying to make the “perfect” choice that I wasn’t making any choice at all. And that, I realized, was probably the worst choice of them all. Just sitting there, paralyzed, while life just chugged along without me.
Then one afternoon, I was just staring at my cluttered desk, looking at all the notes I’d scribbled down, the lists of “why nots” and “what ifs.” It was just a mess. I picked up a coin, a regular quarter, and just held it. It wasn’t a eureka moment, not really. It was more like a slow, dawning understanding that I couldn’t keep this up. My brain was fried. My gut was twisted. I couldn’t gain any more information. I couldn’t analyze any more data. The truth was, both paths had unknown crap and amazing possibilities. There was no guaranteed “right” answer. The only “right” thing to do was to do something.
Making the Move
So, I flipped that quarter. Not really to decide, but to break the spell. Heads: I go. Tails: I stay. It landed heads. My heart thumped. For a split second, a wave of panic washed over me. But then, something else hit me: a weird, almost giddy sense of relief. It wasn’t the coin making the decision for me; it was the coin forcing me to acknowledge my own gut feeling, which, deep down, was already leaning that way. The coin just gave me the push to commit to it, to stop overthinking and start doing.
The very next day, I started small. I didn’t immediately buy a plane ticket or quit my job. No, I opened my laptop and just typed out an email. It was to a contact in that new city, someone I’d loosely chatted with about the opportunity. Just a simple, “Hey, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and I’m really keen to explore it further. What are the next steps?” Hitting send felt like taking a giant leap, even though it was just a few lines of text. It was the first physical, tangible action I’d taken towards that path, and man, did it feel good.
From there, things just sort of started rolling. That email led to a call, that call led to a follow-up, and soon I was actually getting the ball rolling on interviews and logistical stuff. Was it easy? Hell no. There were still moments of doubt, moments where I thought, “What the heck am I doing?” But each time that uncertainty crept in, I reminded myself of that paralyzing feeling of not deciding. And suddenly, the fear of the unknown felt a whole lot better than the dread of standing still.
I dove into the process, messy as it was. I researched moving companies, looked at apartments online, started sorting through my crap to figure out what I’d keep and what I’d sell. It wasn’t about having all the answers at the start; it was about taking one step, then the next, and trusting that the path would sort itself out as I walked it. And you know what? It mostly did. It wasn’t perfect, and there were definitely bumps in the road, but the momentum itself was a huge relief. Just moving forward, even if it was a bit wobbly at times, felt like liberation. It turns out, sometimes the decision itself is the biggest hurdle, and once you jump it, the rest just falls into place, one way or another.
