I’ve never been good at making decisions. Big ones, small ones. It doesn’t matter. I’m usually so focused on what I might be missing out on that I’m nearly incapable of settling on something. It’s not a personality quirk many people, including myself, find charming.
Case in point: Years ago, my future wife and I went to the grocery store to buy pancake mix. She had some other things to pick up, as well, so I volunteered to grab the mix while she shopped.
Upon arriving in the breakfast food aisle, I was hit with a barrage of options that left me wide eyed and wavering: buttermilk, skim milk, lactose free, blueberry, strawberry, blackberry, banana, classic, low fat, fat free, gluten free, multigrain, whole grain, whole wheat, flax seed, low sugar, sugar free, chocolate chip, potato. And that’s not even taking into account the variances in those options between brands. The boxes continued shelf after shelf after shelf.
Nearly 30 minutes later, she found me staring motionless in front of the boxes, holding several in my hand, no closer to setting one down in the cart than when she had left me. No joke.
My indecision has not improved. And I think I may have rubbed off on her a bit, too.
When we moved into our house, we started shopping for dinnerware. We had decided on a brand and style, but we kept going back and forth on what color combinations to get. Just when we would decide on one of them, we would come up with a reason why it might be better to go another way.
We were about to table the discussion for another day—again—when we came up with a solution that has served our household well many times since then: the bowl of destiny. We took a decorative bowl off a nearby shelf, wrote the dinnerware color options on sheets of paper, and dropped them in. We then took turns drawing.
Salad plate color? Draw a slip of paper. Dinner plate color? Another slip of paper. Cereal bowl style and color? Slip of paper followed by another slip of paper. It was the fastest round of decisions we had made in weeks.
And we kept using it. Which new DVD should we watch first on Christmas morning? Grab the bowl and some slips of paper. Which TV show on our DVR should we binge watch this time? Get the bowl. Which home improvement project should be next on our list? Yep, back to the bowl.
We aren’t always thrilled by the bowl’s decrees, but there is a sense of calm in knowing that no matter what the bowl comes up with, our decision will be made. The bowl of destiny doesn’t always give you what you want, but it will always give you what you need.
The Procrastinating Writer 