January 14, 2015

More on Choices

When a friend of mine returned from the Peace Corps, she experienced more culture shock than when she first moved to a remote village in Eastern Europe. It took her a couple of weeks to be able to go into a grocery store due to anxiety – there are too many options. (There is even a blog post dedicated to how to choose yogurt…).

Her anxiety is exactly what I feel when I’m trying to plan a trip and don’t know exactly where I should go. Just look at my previous blog posts. One day I’m focused on Morocco, the next day Prague and Vienna. Then I’m considering going to Greece or even back to Turkey. Then a friend suggests South Africa, another says New Zealand, and my mom says Spain.

It’s so overwhelming.

My brain churns through the data- “the weather here will be better, but there’s not as much ancient history. This location isn’t as safe and my family and friends will freak out; I really want to go here, but it’s too expensive.”

Decision fatigue sets in and I end up spending the evening eating pizza rolls and watching terrible television.

I’m a pretty organized person, so I’m tempted to start a list of the places that I’m considering and weigh the pros and cons, which as LifeHacker points out, can help eliminate decision fatigue.
But when it really comes down to it, I think the best way to make a decision like this is to stop thinking about it for a few days and wait for your gut to tell you what to do.
Interestingly, this is an email I received from The Universe this morning:
 
“Confusion, indecision, and uncertainty, Jessica,
often mean that if you wait a little longer before deciding,
an even better option will emerge,
with such clarity it may bite you on the nose and sweep you off your feet.
The nice kind of bite.
I’d say wait a little longer,
The Universe.”
Postscript: Not an hour after initially pushing this post live, I came upon this interesting App that helps you decide where to travel to. Can’t hurt to try it!

3 thoughts on “More on Choices”

  1. January 20, 2015 at 2:43 am
    Mom

    Interesting, well written.

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  2. January 21, 2015 at 12:56 am
    clizanies

    Great writing! I totally understand the anxiety. While I was planning our trip to Paris (November 2014) I was so overwhelmed that I didn’t even start planning until 2 weeks before our departure. It all ended up going swimmingly, you never have time for everything you plan for anyway, and I took over 1000 pictures to prove it. I’m often plagued with the thoughts, “what if I die tomorrow or we lose our jobs and we can never travel again and I never saw…”, but then I reassure myself with, “We’ll always have Paris.” Follow your heart! My next trip decision was made easily by receiving a gift of a Frommers Italy book for Christmas, so November 2015, here we come Italy!

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