Did you ever pick your one from Column A and after you chose those two from Column B you wondered if the choice from Column A was the right one? Of course you did. Who hasn’t picked some selection, made some choice, committed to some decision, and then wondered if that was the right one to go for?

(For the younger crowd, Chinese restaurants once were noted for menu choices made from two columns, the first typically the proteins and the second were the sides. Do they still do that anywhere? They don’t here. More often than not, complete meals are presented, or aka carte choices can be picked from the entire menu.)

For me, messing up a menu selection would have significant impact, so strong is my love of food. Of course, I have made more significant yet errant choices throughout my life. I once turned down a promotion because I was concerned that I was being chosen over others who had significantly more time in their positions. After reflection, I realized that yes, they had more time, but I was vastly better at doing the actual work. As you would suspect, it was impossible to un-say no.

Just yesterday I was busy assembling the agenda for an upcoming meeting. Throughout the morning, I was interrupted by calls and messages and made little progress. I finally said to myself, “Self,” I said, “there’s nothing that important that comes through your phone any more. Ignore the darn thing and wrap this up so you can get back to your book and enjoy the afternoon.” So I put the darned thing on silent, finished the agenda, then got back to my book. It after lunch (naturally) before I checked to see if I might have missed anything. Of course I had. Unfortunately, one of them was indeed pretty important and I spent the afternoon trying to connect again without any luck.

Choices made because of rigid or poor thinking, each affecting my life rather significantly. We don’t have to do that. We can be creative in our thoughts and in our choices. I could have told my boss that I was honored to have been her choice, accepted the opportunity that frankly I had wanted and would have been good at rather than “magnanimously” stepping aside to make way for seniority. Or I could have configured the phone in myriad other ways than simply ignoring it, allowing important calls through while filtering the unwanted to a holding area.

Yesterday’s Uplift post, Certainty Unsure, looked at that very topic, how we can be certain we are unsure of what we’re doing. Or perhaps how we can be unsure of what we are certain of doing. The bottom line is that we don’t have to be certain. We aren’t restricted to a single path through life. We can choose our own way and it will be okay. I missed out on one opportunity, but I had many others come through. And I might have missed a phone call but like (all our) mother(s) told us, if it was importantly, they’d call again. Be certain to decide to pop over to the ROAMcare site and check it out.