I decide, therefore I am

Why decisions are always worthwhile and how to find the right option for yourself when facing difficult decisions.

Chocolate ice cream or perhaps the new matcha iced tea flavour ice cream at your favourite Italian gelateria? An exchange semester in modern Norway or in warm Italy? A single room with an always-free bathroom or a shared flat room with sociable cooking evenings? Decisions can sometimes be incredibly difficult, so difficult that we sometimes want to avoid them or feel we're despairing over them.

This reluctance towards decisions even has a name: decidophobia – the fear of making decisions. It is the fear that at the end of a decision, you will have chosen the wrong option. That the new ice cream flavour won't taste good, that it will be too cold for us in Norway, or that the constantly filthy kitchen in the shared flat will eventually drive us mad. The uncertain outcome and the possibility of passing up a potentially better option are two extremely unpleasant characteristics of a difficult decision that can sometimes paralyse us and cause us to put it off until the last minute. Especially during our time as students, we are repeatedly called upon to make big and important decisions, in which we sometimes determine how the rest of our lives will unfold. But how do we make the best possible decisions for ourselves in these difficult situations?

In her TED Talk "How to make hard choices", philosopher Ruth Chang identifies another characteristic of difficult decisions: all the options of a difficult decision are equally good. Or rather: one option has advantages in a certain area and the other option has advantages in a different area. The options are "on a par", as she calls it. Or also: indifferent. Indifferent is an interesting word here, as it is often equated with the word "egal" in German usage. However, in relation to decisions, it means that these have the same validity, in other words: the same value. One decision does not promise overall more positive effects than the other. Chang advises viewing these types of decisions as opportunities. Because both decisions are equally good, we cannot make a wrong decision at this moment. But we do get the opportunity to give preference to a certain option. And thus to take a certain direction, or to give more weight to a certain value and thereby remove the indifference of the decision options. For example, am I more of a family person or a career person? Attached to my homeland or a world traveller? A festival-goer or a beer tent enthusiast? A sandwich lover or a sushi fan? These attitudes towards certain topics help us to weigh decision options and eventually condition ourselves, i.e. to influence decisions ourselves. Through the decision for certain clothing items when shopping, eventually the decision for a clothing style conditions itself, through the decision to repeatedly meet with certain friends, eventually the decision for a certain circle of friends conditions itself, and so on. Furthermore, Chang warns against always choosing the supposedly safer option. The one we know might work better, that doesn't pull us out of our comfort zone as much, but in return doesn't correspond as much to our own wishes and values. Ultimately, the philosopher urges us to actively perceive decisions and not to become what she calls a "drifter": someone who lets decisions be made for them from outside, shirks responsibility and uses other people's value systems to come to a decision. Because then you ultimately don't live your own life, but that of others.

Dr. Annette Retsch from the Career Centre at Uni Würzburg also advises first becoming clear about your own values and goals and then aligning your own decisions accordingly.
Furthermore, it can be very helpful to draw on experiences already gained from similar situations in your own life or experiences from fellow students or students from other degree programmes who have already been in similar decision-making situations. In general, Dr. Retsch gives the important hint that we do not have to be on our own when making decisions: in addition to the Career Centre's advisory services, conducting a potential analysis, an outside perspective from your closer circle of acquaintances or family also helps to compare your own perspective and ideas with the outside world. Because especially through conversations with people who are important to us and close to us, we can repeatedly compare and internalise our values and wishes for our future. And even if we disagree with advice on a particular decision-making situation, it only shows us what we don't want and helps us in this way as well.

Finally, but probably most importantly of all, it is to make a decision and then stand by that decision. Because only in this way do we become free from uncertainty and don't waste unnecessary energy on weighing up and pursuing other, equally possible options. On the one hand, we usually already know deep down which option we are most inclined towards, we just sometimes can't put the whole thing into words yet. On the other hand, even if we make a wrong decision, as trite as it may sound, we can learn from it and gain an experience that can help us with the next, possibly even more important decision. But if we fail to decide, we just hang around in a paralyzing in-between state that doesn't move us in any direction and in the worst case lets both decision options slip away. Or as my mother would say: if you chase two hares, you'll catch neither in the end. Mothers are sometimes quite good decision helpers too.

Viktoria Horn