How to navigate crossroads when you don't have a map

Deciding is a talent.

There is nothing I enjoy more than a genuine conversation with a fellow human being. I just naturally take pleasure in exploring someone’s life, asking questions and dissecting the key features and milestones of their lives.

Over the years, the more conversations of this kind I have, the more clearly I see a recurring pattern. It is a pattern of being stuck. Life consistently takes us to crossroads, where we need to make a choice. The largest part of the people I talk to get stuck, because they just can’t decide. Internally torn, hesitating, refusing to relinquish the benefits of the options they would have discarded.

This is the no-decision pattern.

The inability to commit. It’s partly due to the abundance of choices we face in modern society. But above all, it stems from a lack of courage. People don’t know what they value most in life, so they don’t know how to decide.

If that person was on a forest trail, not deciding at a crossroads would mean staying there. Staying there while the sun goes down, the air gets cold, and the wolves start howling…

The first wisdom is this: no-decision is not an option. You must choose. But you won’t know the right path just by staring at it. You need to understand the landscape—the slopes, the stars overhead, the direction they point.

In life, these stars are your values. They guide you through the fog of uncertainty. Without a clear hierarchy of what matters most, you’ll drift aimlessly, pushed around by circumstances.

Seneca said it better :

“If a man does not know to which port he sails, no wind is favourable.”

Paul

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