Decision Paralysis

I get these visions in my mind of things I want, whether it be for home or work, but they don’t exist. So I spend FOREVER looking for this non-existent thing. Even if I find something I like, I have to go to every other store to make sure there isn’t something I like better. 50% of the time I get the original thing (but secretly keep looking) or I get so overwhelmed I can’t decide and I just do nothing.

It’s just that nothing is what I made up in my head! Let me lay out my total crazy for you. I remodeled my whole house last year. (LOTS on that to come). As a newly single mom, nobody else had a stake in it except my teenaged son. I met with about 5 kitchen designers. I didn’t like any design, so I googled 3d design programs and learned RoomSketcher, and designed my own damn kitchen.

Every decision from cabinets to counters to backsplash to lighting to handles and SO MUCH MORE was all on me. I spent 15 hours a day SHOPPING during the pandemic. Not buying…SHOPPING. I click every single ad on social media because they are so perfect for me, and I click through all 30 slides on those damn Wayfair ads. Then I end up with a bunch of choices and I get overwhelmed, or nothing is perfect so I can’t bite the bullet. (Luckily I found the perfect quartz in the fourth stone yard I visited, and I knew right then to do it as a backsplash just to avoid the backsplash decision.)

Or I get it made custom. That’s what I did with the sofa. I still haven’t found the right size rug or coffee table so I may do that as well, or I’m thinking of making one myself.

Then I drive my friends and family crazy asking for their help. When I was doing Wicked Book Weekend, I agonized over what style of t-shirt, which cup, which bag. I’d send them tons of choices to help narrow it down. When I have a special occasion I will buy 3 dresses after going to 20 stores then ask everyone’s opinion. Oh, how I wish someone else would pick what they want for dinner sometimes!

Well, now I am looking for my first pair of progressive glasses. I’ve never worn glasses except for readers, and I’m realizing how important a decision it is. I mean it’s basically a huge change to your face. I think I went to every optical store in my city this week. I’m embarrassed to say how many, and I’m still not done. As a woman who wears all black 95% of the time, I like having pops of color in my bag and my readers. That pop is always purple, therefore I’m pretty stuck on purple frames, so at least that narrows it down to about 12 of the 200+ I tried.

Yesterday I went with Lori and Robin to an optical store right next to where we had lunch. We all picked the same frame for me. But still, I’m wondering whether to go back for those or go to the last three stores I wanted to before I come back and get them.

Tonight I spent the night looking at what shows I could watch and after an hour, and I ended up with my book.

Lori is the complete opposite. She will walk into the store and buy the first sofa she sees. I wish I was like that so much!

How about you? Do you make decisions quickly like Lori or do you agonize over every one of them like me? Or are you someplace in between?