by robertsloan2

Created on: March 06, 2009

The worst life altering decision is to not make your own life altering decisions.

It's possible to dissipate an entire life in too much planning, too much nervous worrying about consequences and freeze into indecision when confronted with something as trivial as deciding what to get for the week at the grocery store. I've lived with that man as a housemate.

A life altering decision is something that's often visible only after the fact. Sometimes they're not conscious decisions. Falling in love with someone is an immediate emotional response. Courting her full tilt is the natural response of a living organism - winning that courtship may mean making changes to every part of your life. That's in the best case where you did fall in love and court the right compatible lady who shares most of your ideals and ideas on how to live.

The planning for that wedding isn't necessarily going to begin to touch on such realities as how to get along with each other when one or the other has to get up several times during the night to take care of a baby. New parents don't get much sleep.

Some life altering decisions are things you can recognize at the time. They usually carry a strong emotional rush as well as some good sound rational reasons when they're examined later. My decision to become a writer when I grew up came very early, at age four. I realized I liked books, could make them up, that they came from people who made them up and that I'd love to do that with my life.

It was a profoundly life altering decision and every human being in my family and immediate environment disagreed with it for numerous reasons of their own. Those ranged from jealousy on the part of at least one teacher to a couple of blue-collar grandparents who disapproved of books and reading in general versus work that's physical and grueling, to extreme disagreement on political and religious issues to all sorts of things. Thing is, it was my life and I would have been miserable doing any of the different things those people all separately wanted me to do instead.

The key to making good life altering decisions is to know yourself. Be self honest. Face the consequences of past decisions for what they are and sort the results by your own ethics.

A life altering decision may have to be repeated several times. The decision to try a beer or a shot of liquor is often a casual, socially supported one. For anyone prone to alcoholism, that initial decision to try it leads to a long term disaster. The decision to

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