The pressure cooker

As it turns out, I'm not such a great decision maker. I'm good at things like waiting tables, writing papers, storytelling, asking other people questions, math problems, baking bread...... I suck at decision making. It's like a table with a deck of cards spread randomly over the top, each card symbolizing a possible option for my future. I pick up a card, examine it thoroughly, talk about it with others, analyze the pros and cons, consider all the variables.... then I realize that there are a lot of unknowns so I put the card back on the table and pick up a new one. This process then gets repeated until I am exhausted and overwhelmed; I get up from the table, only to be met the following day with the same cards, the same picking up and laying back down. Every once in a while I end up pitching a card onto the floor (to be forgotten in theory); however, a week later on my way to sit at the card table, it catches my eye and I feel sad that it got discarded. So yep, you guessed it- the card gets put back up on the table.

The deck of cards and table imagery is relevant because I am trying to make some decisions about the fall- where to work, where to live, where to invest my time and energies, how to settle on a long-term plan. Ideally I would love to have portions of these things decided before going to Africa in a little over 2 weeks-- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, the pressure! (all self-imposed, of course)

Obviously the healthy alternative to this pressure is t0 put all the cards in a hat and ask someone else to randomly draw one out; whatever they draw that's what I will do. Ooo, plus if it doesn't work out perfectly I will have someone else to blame (pressure brings out some of my most charitable thinking).