Let me tell you about a very specific kind of self-deception I've been quietly running for years.
It goes like this: something uncomfortable comes up — a decision, a conversation, a situation that requires me to actually commit to something — and instead of choosing, I simply... don't. I wait. I process. I let it marinate. I tell myself I'm not ready, that I need more information, that the right moment hasn't arrived yet.
And then I wonder why nothing is changing.
Here's the thing nobody told me, or that I heard and politely ignored: not deciding is still deciding. Avoidance is a choice. A fully active, entirely consequential, one hundred percent mine choice — just made by the most anxious, least courageous version of me, without my conscious participation.
When I finally worked this out, my first response was not enlightenment. It was irritation.
The beautiful logic of not knowing
Not knowing I had a choice was, honestly, quite comfortable.
If I didn't know, I wasn't responsible. Things happened to me. Patterns repeated around me. Circumstances conspired. People behaved in ways I couldn't control. And I, the innocent bystander in my own life, carried on — baffled, increasingly frustrated, but definitely not accountable.
The moment I accepted that I'd been choosing all along — choosing avoidance over action, choosing familiar pain over unfamiliar risk, choosing to focus on everything except the actual decision — I couldn't unknow it. Which is deeply annoying. I cannot recommend the experience.
What I was actually choosing
When I wasn't choosing, here is what I was choosing:
I was choosing the situation to continue. I was choosing the other person to set the terms. I was choosing to let time make the decision, which it will — time is extremely decisive and does not wait for you to feel ready. I was choosing, in most cases, the exact outcome I was most afraid of, just delivered slowly enough that I could pretend it had nothing to do with me.
Avoidance is like sitting in a car with the keys in your hand, refusing to drive because you're not entirely sure you'll like the destination. Meanwhile the parking meter runs out, the car gets towed, and you stand on the pavement wondering how you ended up here.
You chose to stay in the car. That's how.
The self-forgiveness clause (it's load-bearing)
Before this becomes a guilt spiral — which it absolutely can, I've done it — here's what's also true:
Most of us weren't taught to make active, confident choices. We were taught to manage other people's responses to our choices. We were taught that choosing wrong was worse than not choosing. We were taught, in a thousand small ways, that the point of a decision was to not upset anyone — including ourselves.
Of course we learned avoidance. It was the safest available option for a very long time.
But the circumstances changed. The safety requirement is different now. And I — we — get to update our strategy when we notice it's producing outcomes we didn't actually choose.
That's not self-blame. That's agency. There's a distinction, and it matters enormously.
Even inaction is a choice. Even avoiding a choice is a choice. And those choices have consequences — usually in the form of another six months of "how did I end up here again?"
The smallest useful thing
I'm not going to tell you to go make all the decisions now. That sounds like motivation-poster advice and motivation posters have never once got me out of a loop.
I'm going to suggest this: find one thing you've been not-deciding, and name it honestly. Not "I'm still figuring things out." The specific thing. The one you already know about.
You don't have to act on it today. But naming the non-choice as a choice is the beginning of something different.
At least you'll know what you're doing.
Which is more than I managed for longer than I'd care to admit.
