I have problems making decisions.

I’m not talking about decisions like what sandwich to get in a coffee shop or which way to take to get home. I have a problem with the big decisions. Where I should be moving this fall or if I should be moving this fall. If I should transfer universities or if I should stick it out at Georgia State. If I want to keep my film minor or drop my film minor. The decisions truly go on for a while.

This has been a problem not just throughout university. Choosing which college I was going to my senior year of high school took the longest time and I ended up going off a base feeling avoiding what I thought would be an awkward situation. I’ve struggled choosing a university major, changing it something around 5 or 6 times before arriving at my current and final major. I struggled with what classes to take my senior year of high school.

As I’m currently stressing over the latest problem I’ve created for myself, I find myself wondering why this keeps happening to me. I know a large portion of why I’m indecisive is based in my anxiety disorder. I worry about everything because that’s how my mind works. No matter how much meditation I do, no matter if I do yoga, no matter if I took the awful pills that made me nauseous and dead to the world, I still worry about things that others would never think about.

Through my university studies I know that a decent portion of my indecision is normal. Basic consumer behavior dictates that on high involvement decisions (decisions that require a strong base of information and that are usually for larger purchases with riskier outcomes) we have potential for dissonance from our final decision. You can see advertisers trying to reduce this fear by guaranteeing that they have the lowest price or the best offer. Big life decisions don’t offer this guarantee, though.

As I’m faced with the decision between two very promising paths this fall I realize that I’m faced with incredible privilege. There are so many people that wouldn’t be in my spot, choosing between taking a semester off of university to work at Disney World or to take a 30 hour unpaid internship. I live a privileged life though I face my own specific life roadblocks.

I know that whichever path I take this fall, I’ll come out fine. Even if I take the massive unpaid internship, I’ll emerge with a college degree and six internships to put on my resume while graduating a semester early. If I take the Disney route I’ll still graduate on time, probably tacking on a seventh internship in my final semester. My indecision still stands, though, and eventually one of my friends are going to snap with my constant wavering and put me in my place.

I think a certain degree of indecision is beneficial. It makes you stop and evaluate your choices. Whether this evaluation is a few seconds of consideration or the pro and con chart of nightmares, it makes you think about what you want from a situation. It’s healthy to stand back and evaluate what you’re doing and where you want to head.

I’m grateful that during the past year and a half I’ve had multiple times to step back and wonder if the path that I’m following is what I want to continue on. I’m more focused because of this and I think it’s showing in my studies and my choices, regardless of the fact that I’m staring down two choices right now with next to no clue which I’ll actually take. Both paths are still in the same direction of what I want in the end, and I know that because I’ve sat back and looked.