The Plague of Indecisiveness

Oh, what should I write about?!
Whose life should I pour countless hours into researching so I'm able to write knowledgeably on their life, which realistically I will still not know an iota about? You can gain knowledge of an individual's beliefs or the way they were an asset to humanity; but there is something crucial missing in all that study- life! The person is dead. and I am alive. There is the possibility that I will live my life more fully or reach better heights with it because I have the advantage of using them as examples. but I will never really know them. I'll never know what drove them to do what they did or think what they thought.

The topic for one of two biographical essays I shall write this year is due today. And here I sit, writhing over this decision. Why is that I find it so difficult to make a choice, any choice, this choice?

Life is full of choices. Maybe I should stop stumbling over the bigger ones and build up the habit of making successful smaller ones. Who to write this paper on is not a huge decision; no where near as big as where to go to college. In theory it sounds great, doesnt it? Too bad I'm not successful in implementing my own stratagem.

Maybe there's a book on the subject I can read...

;-]

I've successfully vented. Once I've published this post, I'll return to my scrap sheet of paper with names scratched off, rewritten, and scratched off again. My brain will play a broken record: you've got to decide. you've got to send the email. this is not hard. you've got to make a decision. I will proceed to step out of my little tangent bubble and back into reality where as much as I analyze or discuss, the problem persists and stares me in the face; and the only source of comfort- it just dawned on me- is prayer.

"The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the heck they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino." -Joe Fox in You've Got Mail