It seems to me that Life is not about making right decisions 100% of the time. No human being is able to do that. We've got to make decisions taking into consideration the past and the present, without any knowledge of the future. That is how things are!

What is more important is to be a human being fully able to deal with the decisions you make and the consequences of the decisions you make - and fully able to take the responsability, without trying to blame others for the consequences of your own decisions.

We make decisions, then we see the consequences, then we learn from them - and, hopefully, learn how to make better decisions in the future.

We may regret decisions after a while, but that is unavoidable and it is how life works. Without the experience of the consequences of our decisions, how can we learn to make better decisons?

Asking these questions you describe is a good thing before you make a decision. After you make the decision, your work is not to ask anymore, but to analyse the consequences and learn from them. A decision cannot be so disastrous as to be absolutely wrong (we're not talking here of crime, ok? Crime is always disastrous, not only for the victim, also for the perpretrator.)

Some of the consequences will maybe be bad, others will be good. Be brave and decide to acept the consequences of your decisions, instead of trying to make the right decision every time. By deciding to acept the consequences, no matter what, you learn how to be stronger.

Boy, is this a good question!!!

I just passed into my seventh decade, and hindsight is often 20/20....But perhaps you are young, and I can tell you what I have learned from looking back upon my life.

There are some absolute rights and wrongs, and those absolute mores extend across all societies, and all religions, so we can start there: Murdering innocent people, especially children, is wrong. There are other commonalities across social groups: sexual relations with family members are wrong; stealing is wrong; and so forth. These rules help with the big decisions, but I don't think you are referring to these things...But I must mention them first.

As for me, I can look back and see precisely where I went astray, but at that exact time, I felt that my decisions were right. For example, I made the decision to be a stay-at-home mother...and thus my children suffered a bit of poverty, and grew up in a house that was too small. But my ex-husband traveled, often Monday through Friday, and my kids were a handful (I had four that were ten and under). They were all gifted, and I saw that they would (and did) outsmart babysitters. The older two always fought while I left, so I really felt that I needed to be home. We went to the library very often, and came home with forty books at a time. They all were readers, and were "geeks"- I am realizing now that the hazing they got at school must have been much worse than I knew. ' I got absolutely worn out with child care, and the wrong decision I made wasn't staying home- it was that I did not take care of myself first. That may sound selfish, but if I had fixed the holes in my own lifeboat (so-to-speak), then maybe I would have had more energy and would not have gotten so gravely ill. With the ex on the road, this forced them to take care of grown-up stuff when they should have been being kids. I now feel very sorry about this, but they were so smart, and so challenging, that I couldn't see any way out of that.

So decisions like this, which were more or less made because I was the oldest child in my family of origin, and my mother worked evenings, forcing me to be a mom to my three sisters. I was 11 when my youngest sister was born, and she would not go to any babysitter- so I had to care for this toddler, just as my son took care of my youngest while I made dinner.

Decisions are really really complicated, and you just never know how it all will play out in the end, and that is what you fear. You are asking us to tell you the ending of the story, and it's really hard to know, isn't it?

Life is like that. We come here to learn- and we keep what we learn in our souls- forever- especially the really hard lessons. I know now what is important: love. Being loving, living while loving others...that matters to me. I guess I have learned that lesson. But everyone is here to learn different lessons, and if you imagine that perhaps this is not the only life you will live, then you can relax a bit. Mistakes happen, and sometimes they do not. "Think, think, think" works for me. I am impulsive and even rash sometimes, and "think, think, think" slows me down. I do not regret some of my decisions: marrying Wade was the end result of a long friendship that turned into a long and fun courtship, some of which happened right here on IQ!!!

Relax. Think. Be loving. And find your bliss! Don't ignore that still, small voice inside you that whispers that you are unhappy. Life is too short, and unhappiness attracts more unhappiness, and nothing more.

Good luck! I am sure everyone else will do better than I with their answers, but this was a great question, and I thank you. I hope I helped in some small way.

Jaianniah

First and foremost stop with the negative self talk and stop telling yourself things such as "I'm just an idiot" ! Ask yourself this question: "Do you usually make bad decisions? Is that a true statement?" I sincerely doubt it. You need to stop saying it before it becomes a belief.

Experience, knowing oneself ..... If you can't trust your innate wisdom to guide you, then start by making more decisions and you'll soon build confidence and with confidence comes trust.

... but what can be worse, is not making a decision & being in a state of 'limbo'. Choose ! Its about flow not stagnation and right now you're also swimming up stream and back peddling. If later you find out its not working the way you want it to or something else comes up, there is nothing stopping you from changing course.

There is no law which states you can't make adjustments along the route or even take a detour if something looks better. Detours can be lots of fun too. Life is about experiences and I think it would be pretty boring if it wasn't.

Unless its a life and death or do or die decision where you should also go with your 'gut' ~

You can simply say or even yell, Plot-Twist and change direction !

There are black and white, good or bad, right or wrong but as to your situation not all are a choice between those two extremes. We must think of life not as to a metaphor of a car driving, because you can always turn back around and take the other turn. But we must more think of life as an arrow flying through the air, each decision is a deflection of that arrow, you can't turn around and go back. The best you could do is circle back but everything is changed when you get back. It is (even if returned to) a different decision, with different consequences. No matter how hard you may try, you cannot step on the same flowing water twice.

So with this in mind, pining over if you had made the wrong decision is like deciding not to jump in the water after you have jumped and are diving in mid-flight towards the water. The best you can do is decide, where to now? What is your choice next? As I said you can always circle back but you will still have consequences from your first decision to deal with. Think of it as a pencil writing that can not be lifted and there is no eraser. So circling back will leave a trail of consequences.

The thing is not to consider if you made a good or bad choice, but to consider how to get the best out of the choice you made.

perhaps it is not what is
right but the better of that
known at the time choice is made,
life being fluid returns

the circle is not closed
to choose again