An Attitude of Exellence

When did decision-making become so difficult?

Gone are the days when the hardest decision was whether to sit with your best friend or your brother at lunch (just for the record: I might have picked my best friend over my brother for a few years, but in my defense…who makes rationale decisions as a 13 year old?!?).

Gone are the days when you wake up in the morning and have an internal battle: do I wear the vibrant purple eye shadow or the electric blue eye shadow, and more importantly, do I match my outfit to my eye shadow (I was always more of a purple girl and perhaps I did match an outfit or two with my eye shadow...and occasionally still do).

Gone are the days when you need to decide whether to be a swimmer or a dancer (obviously many know the decision I made, though, I tend to try and relive my dancin’ days when I have the chance—whether it be an impromptu dance party with JLO or on the table of a bourbon bar in Louisville ;-).

Although these decisions growing up seemed difficult--really they weren’t. But today I long for those days; I want to let myself drift backwards, only for a moment, and cover myself in those memories when decision-making revolved around friends, sports, and fashion.

Strangely (or un-strangely, I guess, if you are anticipating it), the last year as PhD student has more decisions than you could care to imagine and many of them come in the last six months. I’m currently in decision-making mode. Some of the decisions are obvious: no, Kara, you should not go to the baseball game on Sunday because your dissertation is not finished. Some of the decisions are not that obvious and require lists—lots and lots of lists. As mentioned in a previous post, I am a list-creating queen. I make lists to make lists. But the lists don’t make the decisions for you (nor, for that matter, does your dog though I have tried for three days to get Trini’s opinion on a writing matter. For the moment I’m taking the silence as confirmation of what I’m doing is moving in the right direction). And neither does anyone else as much as you might want them to. No, the decisions are all you.

But—what if I make the wrong decision? Will my dissertation fail? Will I be happy in that city? Will I learn from my writing mistakes? Will I be able to continue my research? Will I…make it?

My mom has always encouraged me that before a decision can be made you need to do three things: (1) you need to make sure you are informed (which includes list-making); (2) you need to pray; and (3) you need to maintain an attitude of excellence. The hardest of the three is maintaining an attitude of excellence because it forces you to believe in your decision-making ability when all you really want to do it doubt it (or crawl under a cozy blanket and ran away from it).

Currently my attitude of excellence is wavering a bit—kinda floating right outside my peripheral vision and giggling a girlish giggle at my state of indecisiveness. What I want (er need) to do is give her a good flick and rein her back in. Because decisions need to be made.

But instead, for this moment, I'm going to wrap the memories of my 13 yr old self around me like a cozy blanket and just sit on it a bit.