Faced with Too Many Options? Just Choose.

I have a hard enough time choosing which ice cream flavor to order, let alone what to do with my life and who to spend it with.

Sometimes the thousands of different choices and options cloud out which choices are important. After sampling ten flavors of ice cream behind the counter and getting a sideways glare from the up-to-now patient employee, I’m done making choices. I want to forget the ice cream and run right home to hide in bed.

So you can imagine the reaction deciding to say yes or no to a date elicits in me.

What if I make the wrong choice? What does God want me to do?

Being a perfectionist and people-pleaser, I’m always afraid of making the wrong choice. There are land mines everywhere. I run the risks of not pleasing people, not pleasing myself, and even of not pleasing God.

I live with great housemates and work at a job I love, but I remained unsatisfied. I decided to live where I’m living because it was convenient and worked out, and the job just fell into my lap. I didn’t really have to make any monumental decisions to get here.

In my mid-twenties and not yet settled in any vocation, I can feel restless and powerless. I wait for some big sign, for God’s plan to just happen to me, but sometimes I’m anxious that it won’t happen.

On top of feeling overwhelmed and afraid of making choices, it gets even more complicated. Being a young Catholic woman, and a little bit of feisty and bossy one, I picked up the message that it was more virtuous to remain quiet, not speak up, and just follow. I am so afraid of stepping on Jesus’s toes and leading the relationship (kind of like my attempts at dancing), that I’m not actively participating either. I thought that whatever happened to me must be God’s plan, regardless of my cooperation. I resigned myself to being a product of fate.

Too many choices can be overwhelming and paralyzing.

All of this left me paralyzed in fear and discontentment with my situation. I decided a month ago when I sent in my rent check to make an active choice. Instead of every day wondering if I am in the right place or if I should move, I decided to choose. Paying my rent was an opportunity to actively choose to live here for the month.

I realized I could make the same choice with my job. Beginning a new program at work was an opportunity to decide to commit until that program is finished. I can always stay longer, but this was a way to keep making choices.

These two moments helped me feel empowered. It didn’t actually change any circumstances, and I probably will live in my house and work at my job for more time anyway, but instead of being a spectator, I became an active participant.

There is virtue in making a choice. Even if it’s the wrong one. God wants my freedom! He lets us make choices, make mistakes, and even make some people unhappy because our freedom is worth it.

Out of love, God gave us free will to choose.

Let’s be active cooperators with God in our lives, even if that means making mistakes. Let’s listen in prayer and discern to make good choices, but then make them! Instead of waiting to see what the course of my life will be, I get to decide it, shape it and cooperate with my Creator to make it.

To choose boldly is virtuous because it's an act of trust. Be confident that God will bless your choices.

Maybe today my choice just needs to be to get out of bed. But let it be a choice, a decision made, not just a passive action. Then I can make another choice and another. Instead of just following what I’ve always done or being a victim of my circumstances, I can choose virtue.

I imagined the saints were in a league of their own because they had more heroic circumstances in their lives, or that their journey was more exciting. But they made choices. They chose virtue and holiness everyday, often overcoming many vices and obstacles to get there.

Making choices takes boldness and confidence that God will use our choices and bless them. It changes our idea from a harsh and demanding God who is ready to jump on us for any mistake, to a kind father, excited to see what his children will create next.