Inevitability, Decisions & Choice (or, How life moves you as much or more as you move in life)

Facing the Fates: Deciding What Will Be When Given Limited Options

In the Foreign Service, we move to new places every two to four years.  We are invited to live in a new country, learn a new language, experience a different culture, share with people our journey and vice versa.  Often, we don't always know where we are going to end up.  For some, this can be worrisome, not knowing your future.  But, here's the thing about some of life's big decisions being chosen for you in the Foreign Service: it is exciting.  It is adventurous.  It is amazing.  It can be tough.  It can provide the opportunity to face your greatest fears or to fulfill an unrealized dream long held dear: perhaps both, simultaneously.  It is one thing to decide where you are going and then go. It is alternatively another to say, "Let the fates be made and then be happy with it."  Here is my take (albeit brief) on facing situations where choice is limited or directed.

Hungry?

Letting go of the power of choice can be liberating.  Seems counterintuitive, I know.  So why, you ask, is this so?  Studies in behavioral psychology have repeatedly shown that we are happier and healthier when faced with a number of limited decisions.  Being faced with no choice is life-defeating, but too many choices can be overwhelming.  When the world is our oyster, often we want spaghetti... or are not hungry at all.


When we have more decision-making, more selection, more opportunity, more options, we are happier, right?  Yes and no.  Having self-sufficiency, personal independence, and self-determination provides power.  But with all the choices in the world before you, and little direction, it can lead to stagnation and even paralysis.  What if I choose wrongly?  What if I go down a path that proves a waste of time, energy, and resources?  There is the inevitability of self-doubt, the what-ifs, and the back-o'-the mind question of what could I have done differently?

So many options, so little time!

So how to pick only ONE option, one way, one path, when it appears that ALL selections lie before you?  Hmmm.... that is why it is okay, and perfectly healthy, to shut doors and avenues.  At twenty, I would have doubted that, but it's true: making our own paths leads to alternative realities becoming, indubitably, ever out of reach.  And that is okay. We are but one person: no need to do all and be all when we can be who we are and strive for what we want without losing sight of the values, ideals, and people that are most important to us.

Allowing some amount of flexibility in the decision-making of your future, however, both challenges and pushes you out of your own box of comfortability.  It allows you to think of yourself in ways you had not perceived previously.  It allows you the freedom of being a part of a process where possibility, synchronicity, and chance collide--sometimes beautifully.

Do ya take the call?

As an example, I was sure we would be posted to Africa after Mumbai.  We had several African postings high on our list and I assumed that was where our near future would lead.  I was happy with that.  I was also contented with the idea of going to Latin America, South Asia, the Middle East, and eastern Europe.  I was pretty convinced we would get SOMEthing, I just didn't know what. So when we finally got our post, I was shocked. Incredulous.  Unsure.  I checked and re-read the email over and over.  I thought it might have been a misprint. I was sure someone else would get it, but there were our names beside four little letters: R-O-M-E.  So that was that.  We were going to Rome! (Once I got over the initial shock, by the way, I was thrilled.)


We got an amazing posting and we are elated about our upcoming future.  Cheese!  Wine!  Art! Music!  Italy!  Need I say more?  (I will, er-hum, in future posts).

Of course, every city is a great post, in its own way, but preferentially some are above others on my bucket list.  So this is the post-me, the future me, responding to where I got posted.  [And I realize that months have passed without updating the online community about our next posting worldwide.  Mea culpa.]  In all fairness, I got posted to one of the most intellectually stimulating, soulfully artful, and linguistically interesting places in the world: Bella Roma!  We will move from India to Italy by summer of 2014.

New Doors, New Options

Yes, I was lucky.  Sometimes you don't get your top picks.  Sometimes there is surprise followed by tears.  Sometimes it takes weeks to realize that your world has been turned around overnight and that you are soon going to be learning a different language, buying new clothes, meeting new friends, and eating food that you aren't yet sure about.  And that's okay.

The good news is that most people I've talked to end up adjusting, adapting, and often loving the place they may have not expected or originally hoped for: we learn to live with what we have and be satisfied with what we are given.  The future holds great opportunity, yes, but the present is what we live with, day in, day out: better make the best of it.  Choices I was not happy with, struggles that I was not ready to face, in retrospect, have become my greatest allies, personal triumphs, and happiest moments.  When we do what is always expected, we will know what to expect.  Indeed. But expectations are finite, limited to our current perspective: might as well go for what we can't foresee and invite the opportunity to become more than we ever imagined when we were standing still or stuck in the inertia of indecision.

Go Ahead, Walk a Mile

That's the amazing thing about humanity: we learn to become who we are wherever we may be.  We come to see ourselves through the eyes of others, walking in their shoes, sharing in their meals, and exchanging words of insight.  We come to know who we are by where we stand, where we are going, and who we are with: without new challenges, we remain standing, yes, but at a standstill.  If we always knew what we were going to get, there would never be those moments of risk, surprise, or epiphany in light of the new.  This is the life of the Foreign Service. And it is wonderful.