Do I Want To?

How we really make decisions

When trying to navigate a path through difficult decisions, especially one with several options, we often reach for all kinds of things essentially designed to keep us from one significant question — what do I want to do?

We avoid this question for a variety of reasons, including just not wanting to put ourselves out there for all to see.  Reasons, we claim, are why we do things.  But, so often that is not really the case.  Often, we don't do something simply because of our fears — fear of failure being among the larger ones.

Data, for example, is a convenient thing to hide behind (even from ourselves).  But, doing something because of the data alone too often just serves to create some cover for us to locate blame, if things don't turn out well.  At the heart of the matter, we really are just avoiding a more powerful driver in our lives.  Do I want to do this or that?  ...not whether this or that will work out.  

Many times we do things out of necessity; that is simply part of life.  But, when it comes down to choosing between options, we really need to face why we wouldn't do, in the end, what we really want to do.  There may, in fact, be good reasons.  But, choosing something, even for good reasons, that you really don't want to will likely just be exposed at a later point in time — you didn't really want to do it anyway.

So, though a process of getting to it is important, the more significant question persists regarding any particular option — do I want to do this?

All of this is on my mind at the moment because of something directly in front of me right now. I have some near-term career choices to make about the future. I can describe in a fair amount of depth what the options are as well as my misgivings or excitement about each of them. I’ve used data to try to overcome the risks of each. But, the bottom line is that there is no way to guarantee what would happen with any given choice. And because of that, the crux of the matter is, I simply have (get) to choose.

And the only really tangible element is which one I want to do (or not).

I’m retroactively adding a PS to this one:

For some religious folks of certain ilks, the idea of trusting what you want seems to provoke something. These traditions promote a heavy dose of things like you should never trust yourself, because you are primarily bad (the only remedy to that presumption is when you get saved, but YOU are still primarily bad…and redemption is the only solution for that).

But, seriously, isn’t this rather simplistic and a bit unthoughtful (not to mention, potentially harmful)? It is rooted in transaction-based theology, which is much more consistent with American cultural perspectives than with the biblical presentation of the relationship God has with man.

I’m much more comfortable with the approach that man is innately endowed with goodness by God, that evil is primarily the suppression of that truth, that man thereby often misses that truth and gets quite lost in the whole thing, individually to be sure, but much more so collectively. Jesus is most certainly a remedy, much actually way more than that.

As we experience Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, we become aware again of the true nature of things — which allows and enables us to learn how to deeply trust our innate goodness (even if that takes some practice…life-long practice even). It is, in fact, the very way we trust God.

Most other things (especially all the interpreted add-ons) are often forms of denial of this most basic dynamic — but, certainly, a primary and persistent distrust of oneself can not be of God.

And, so, we are free to explore the full range of where we are inclined to go (even if it doesn’t ‘go well’ at times along the way or, dare I say it, is the wrong way) because of the original and abiding connection between us and God. ‘Do I want to?’ can be one of the most liberating questions we can ask (especially if it disabused of self-distrust) because it is rooted in awareness of the deeper dependence we have that the Spirit of God is guiding us through the very process of becoming aware of who we truly are and what we have been given to give to the world.