I recently heard someone suggest a way to approach a difficult decision: Ask yourself, Am I prepared for the worst possible consequence?
Naturally, I began imagining consequences. The obvious ones came first. Then a few increasingly terrible scenarios wandered in. Given enough time, I could probably imagine monsters under every bed.
And then I squinted at the logic.
How could I possibly know the worst possible consequence? For that matter, how could I know the best?
When we’re faced with to do or not to do, perhaps the question isn’t how to predict what will happen. It’s how to choose when we can’t.
The Future Isn’t Talking
There is an old observation about having suffered many terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened. We humans can be remarkably inventive when imagining what might go wrong.
Of course we should consider consequences. We can gather information, study the numbers, ask questions, listen to people who know more than we do. That’s discernment.
But eventually information reaches its limit. No amount of studying can tell us what will happen after we make the decision.
Imagination isn’t only where our fears rehearse. It is where possibility first becomes visible.
We imagine ways we want to live. Sometimes we move toward something not because we know what it will give us, but because we recognize ourselves in the doing.
We can call it our calling—but what if it’s a wrong number?
Neither fear nor desire predicts the future.
To Do or Not to Do
We tend to think of doing as the risky choice. What if I regret it? What if things unfold very differently than I hoped?
Worth considering. But doing isn’t the only choice. We can choose not to do. We can choose to wait.
Even leaving a decision unanswered shapes what happens next.
There may be experiences we never have, directions we never explore, even parts of ourselves we never meet.
Years ago, I faced one particularly consequential decision: whether to go on a first date with my boss. If things went badly, I might need another job.
But I knew myself. I knew my abilities, my devotion to work, my capacity to begin again. What I could not possibly have known was the outcome.
Thirty-seven years later, we still wake up together, still work together, still love each other passionately. I didn’t know I was choosing thirty-seven years. I chose the possibility of it.
Maybe that’s all any of us ever chooses. We don’t choose outcomes. We choose what to move toward.
Eventually, the inquiry turns away from the unknowable future and toward ourselves.
Knowing what I know, accepting what I cannot know, what am I willing to choose?
Which choice compels me more—and what will I do with that knowing?