monsoony soon

The more decisions you are forced to make alone,
the more aware you are of your freedom to choose.
-Thornton Wilder

I've been following the Kyle Merritt Major-(In)Decision-Making-Protocol for the last couple weeks or so about this whole motorcycle adventure. If you've witnessed it, you know how painful it is for me and anyone that has to talk to me. I analyze, I whine, I delay. I won't say I'm a BAD decision maker, as I'd like to think I make the right decision....eventually. As with most things, I would like to blame this unpleasant personality trait on my parents. Especially my father. For two reasons.

1. It's genetic.

My dad is thoughtful and deliberate, and, well, slow. I don't think I fully appreciated this until we were travelling in Guatemala together. I loved the time we spent together there, but I think that trip really let me understand both of my parents better for different reasons.

2. It's environmental.

My parents have always been great at not telling me what to do. Other than for giving me lots of love, I think this is what I appreciate the most about my mom and dad. They were very good at assessing my ability to make decisions and supporting me non-judgmentally when appropriate. You'd think this would allow me to have practice at making smart decisions when there was less riding on them, and I think it did. Unfortunately, my dad also had a habit of talking about the road-not-taken quite a bit, immediately post-decision. Once you decide to do something, you want to forget about the pro's column on the other side of the list for awhile.

Anyhow, as we say in PBL. It's a complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors.

So, I'm going ahead with the plan. I'm pretty sure it's not my best idea, but I'm excited about it. The time I spent in the daycare on wednesday really made me realize that pretty soon, I will actually have to work hard, and sometime after that I might have children and a career to manage. Although this Obs/Gyn block is really making me happy about being a man (this was menopause week), I'm hearing the tick-tock of the clock lately. I'm almost 26 people! Do they call this the quarter life crisis?