“There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision of character. – I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what, in given circumstances, is to be done, and does it.” – Hazlit
There is something worst than a wrong decision. It is a NO DECISION. I respect a person who carefully weighs his options then makes a decision then learns from it, even if the decision turns out to be wrong.
This is in contrast to a person who has weighed his options but never makes a decision. He has delegated his future to circumstance; therefore , he has limited his opportunities to learn.
Hastiness, lack of information, lack of experience or lack of careful analysis may cause wrong decisions. We must pay careful attention to avoid these; however, there are times that a decision must be made quickly even when the information is insufficient.
If the information is sufficient, yet we fail to decide, we have surrendered our future to chance. We gave up the privilege to pursue the improvement of our situation.
Making decisions for our present and future is a privilege that we must not turn over to our environment. We are who we are based on our decisions, it includes deciding not to decide, including being allowed to be swayed by external forces instead of planning our own lives; it also includes the opposite, the courageous decisions that set us part and helped us become better people.
Circumstance will try to trap us, unnerve us, or make us insecure to make decisions. Regardless of a negative environment, we must take the risk to decide and hopefully, we would make the right choice; but if we make the wrong choice, hopefully, the mess would not be too much to clean up. But that is always better than deciding not to decide.
To succeed in life, one must learn to make decisions and learn from them. Whether the decisions end up right or wrong. We can charge that to experience.
The more we understand the consequences of our decisions, the more we become equipped by experience. The more we experience, the more we learn; and the more we learn, the more we grow in wisdom. And the more we grow in wisdom, the more we achieve holistic success.
Let us face what we need to face. Let us make courageously yet carefully weighed decisions and learn from their results.
Once there was a young man who asked an old master, “How do I succeed in life?”
The master replied, “Wisdom”.
Then the young man said, “How do I gain wisdom?”
“By making the right decisions,” said the old man.
The young man persisted, “How do I learn to make the right decisions?”
“Experience!” answered the master.
“How do I gain experience?” inquired the young man.
“By making wrong decisions!” exclaimed the Master.
A nation, like an individual, experiences turning points in life, some of them major, some of them minor, some significant, some not so significant. There are turning points that change the course completely. At a point in history, our nation was desperate for a major, significant change. We wanted a new direction, we wanted freedom!