On Making Life Decisions.

One of my friends, Cleo, has just been offered two jobs. One in her hometown of Glasgow and one in Cordoba.

We have a What’s App group with our friend Megan, which we set up after meeting in Vietnam at Christmas. It’s one of those where you don’t look at your phone for 30 minutes and then come back to 356 notifications. I’ll admit that I’m a glutton for sending multiple individual messages, punctuating the conversation as if we were in the room together.

Cleo has asked Megan and I what she should do. Which job should she take? She’s currently living in Glasgow but has been speaking to the company in Cordoba since she was in Hanoi in January.

The truth is that neither Megan nor I can decide for her. Or even attempt to answer the question, because it’s so subjective and really only affects Cleo’s life, in the context of the three of us: Megan is about to start a year-long contract in Dublin and I’ve just left my job to go travelling for 5 months. But we can of course offer our subjective pearls of wisdom.

I really like Megan a lot. She’s your wonderfully witty and humble Irish gal. She advised Cleo to write a list of pros and cons for the Cordoba job. She suggested a list of questions that Cleo should ask herself. But the final question was “Which one will you regret more”?

This is the reason I’ve put pen to paper, or finger to phone, if you will. I am all for the pros and the cons. Based on facts. But quite contrary to a question that is impossible to answer, when suggesting a person use it to make their life decision.

No one can say what they “will regret more”. For the following reasons:

1. No one can see into the future. (Unless you can, in which case please do send me the lotto numbers for the next draw!)
2. Making an assumption about which outcome you will regret more is futile. We don’t live in a world of Sliding Doors, so you’ll never know the outcome of the other choice. Make the assumption, but you will never be able to prove you were right because you will only ever know the outcome of the decision you made, and not the one you didn’t. Therefore, you’ll have no basis for comparison and no way to prove your original assumption of which choice you would regret more. Moreover what’s to say you will regret anything about your final choice?

Moral of the story, kids: don’t use hypothetical regrets as a basis for life decisions. You will never, ever know if you were right.