Living in the COVID World...and Beyond #72: The Road Not Taken

We all make hundreds of decisions every day.   This morning, I decided what I wanted for breakfast.  I also decided whether or not to shave (it’s Sunday so I really do have a choice).   I decided not to take a call from a friend but instead let it go to voicemail so that I could get into the shower promptly after I had exercised.   I probably make thousands of decisions each day, mostly small ones without major consequences.   Some decisions are bigger and have much broader consequences, not only for me but also for those around me.

Most of these decisions I don’t even think twice about.   I don’t review them afterwards and second-guess, for example, whether I had the healthiest breakfast.   I do sometimes curse and wish I had not gotten on the highway and gotten into that traffic jam or that I had not bothered to read that whole article in a magazine when I really seemed to learn what there was to learn just from the opening paragraph.   So, to quote from the song, “Regrets, I’ve had a few and then again, too few to mention.”  

I want to share two examples of bigger decision that I have made to which my mind continues to return.  

Example number 1 is a very personal decision that my wife and I made over and over again not to have children.   We talked about it extensively and repeatedly decided, at various points in our lives together, that it just did not make sense for us for various reasons.  

Example number 2 is a professional decision that again my wife and I made together.  In the early 1990’s, when I was a rising star at GE, I was offered the position of Human Resources Executive for GE across the Asia-Pacific region.   This was a huge job, a big promotion, and it would have put me squarely on the path to compete, over time, for the role of Senior Vice President of Human Resources for the entire GE Company.  

I re-visit these decisions in my mind periodically.

I love being with children.   Everyone tells me that I would have been a great parent, and I think they’re right.    And I have no regrets about the decision.   I miss having children.   I have cried about not having had children.  And I think the decision was absolutely the right one for my wife and me … thus no regrets.   I think it’s important to feel whatever feelings we have about “the road not taken” (to quote the poem).   But feeling those feelings is not the same thing as wishing we had taken the other road. 

The same is true for that professional decision I made over 30 years ago.   I loved working at GE, I loved the challenges, and I love making a difference in thousands of people’s work lives.   I miss that I never got the chance to play the biggest possible role for me at GE.   But missing it is not the same as regretting the decision.  It was clear that turning down that position was the best decision that I could have made at that time.  

We do the best thinking that we possibly can to make decisions.  We collect information, maybe we solicit other’s input, maybe we make lists.   We weigh things out with whatever tools we have available to us, or we rely on our gut intuition.   We decide.   Some decisions turn out well, other decisions not as well.    Sometimes we might look at past decisions as mistakes.   They are all our decisions.  And we own those decisions, for better or worse.   And we get to mourn the road not taken and experience the loss for what that would have been.  

What decisions have you made that you re-visit in your mind?    Are you able to feel the loss of the road not taken?