I wonder a lot if I’m doing the right thing.  Am I helping or hindering?  Am I being a parent or a teacher demanding perfection? Am I the confidant or the crying child wanting to be soothed?  I can see myself in all these roles, changing from one to the other, questioning the choice I’ve taken.  As always, concerned as to ‘what’s the correct choice, the best choice, and how do I get to where I know for sure’?

Decisions, alternative choices, options.  These are difficult areas, unknowns in outcomes and emotionally charged.  The best choice depends on the situation.  I prefer to be more accepting and look at the whole situation I’m presented with prior to making up my mind.  But I am also aware that in making a quick decision the alternatives may not be thought out well.   Do I take the best option, or the easiest alternative, or the most politically correct stance?  Decisions are difficult.  They exist and therefore produce an outcome, an alternative that may lead to a great change or a horrible experience.

So how do I decide?  Do I take knowledge from previous mistakes or grand results and make an ‘informed’ decision?  If  knowledge of what has been tried before is the only way to decide on the present with a resulting future, do I take the risk of new or stay with the known?

Maybe knowledge doesn’t grow on trees, but what we gain in each days’ experience does make connections with past memories. It’s a lifelong process of learning the whys and where’s and hows of actions. We each remember life differently, and these memories are kept by each of us, taken out at times and explored.  Sometimes remembered well, sometimes only a whisper waiting for the thoughts to co-mingle with other memories bringing with them joy, hope, sadness, anxiety, despair, and love.  Memories of a lifetime’s decisions, alternatives, and actions.

So, does this mean as I get older, I’ll make better decisions?  I certainly hope so, but also hope  with those decisions where I take the wrong turn don’t end badly. And if they do, I hope I can see the good, that glimmer of positive in each outcome.