Just Pick Something

If I had one real piece of advice to give, it would be this: just pick something.

Roommate has a different philosophy. She thinks that given sufficient research, a correct decision can be made and precious time can be saved from doing the wrong thing. I disagree.

I feel vaguely as though I have written about this before. It's certainly come up before, life-wise. It doesn't matter. It's important and therefore gets to get repeat mentions. Onward!
So here's the thing: there are actually no right answers. I should say there is no Right answer but perhaps plenty of right answers and certainly Wrong answers, but maybe you can't always tell which ones are Wrong and sometimes you think an answer is Wrong but it's not or maybe some answers are wrong sometimes and right other times. Well, life is complicated like that. For clarity, I'm intentionally speaking in a very broad context, because I think this advice is broadly applicable. Whenever you need to make a decision, really.
For now though, let's talk about deciding what you want to do with your life. Just pick something. People are afraid of closing doors, but, honestly, options make people less happy (proven with science!). You were not born for the sole purpose of doing any one thing (well other than continue your genetic line). You don't need to find that thing you were destined to do. You just do things. Once you've eliminated all the things you don't want to do, you have many valid options. If you have some reason to choose one above the others, do it. If you don't, it really doesn't matter which you pick, then, does it? So just pick one. Roommate would probably suggest introspection to determine what you want and research into your options to see if that is indeed what you want. I don't think that it's possible to know what something is like. To know if that is truly what you want, until you try it. Just pick one. Seriously. If it's not the Wrong option, you'll probably be happy enough. There are no guarantees that you'll be happier elsewhere, and since people tend towards some midline of happiness regardless of their situation, you probably won't be happier elsewhere. As long as you're happy enough. If you're not happy enough, then you can do something different. Change your career. Get a hobby. Whatever. It's not there is only one source of happiness. I forget sometimes that lots (most?) of people don't tie their identities to their careers. A career is just a way to get money. Happiness can come from anywhere. So just try to avoid things that actively make you unhappy.

People from the Midwest are notoriously indecisive. Maybe this is true elsewhere as well, I don't know. No one wants to make a decision because no one has any real objections to anything and everyone just wants to make sure everyone else is happy. Then people just stand around going "oh, I dunno, whatever you want." Just pick something.

I like the Just Pick Something mindset, because the only decision that I really need to make is that it doesn't matter. Once that's decided, it's easy and decisions can be made by just pointing at random. Even if it is the Wrong decision, you will very probably survive. And if you don't, I'm going to guess there wasn't much to be done about it anyway.