Tick, Tock

You know you don’t have the luxury of time. You have 10 seconds remaining. Decisions like this seem to be easy for everyone else. Why are you so indecisive? Constantly second-guessing yourself? Do you or don’t you? Will you or won’t you? And it’s not just now, with this decision, it’s every single little thing and every single big thing. You stress before, during and after all decisions, bar none. Sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks, often even for years. 

Remember the time in high school you had to decide what sport activity to sign up for? You vacillated, back and forth between surfing and tennis, tennis and surfing. You waited so long, the spots filled up and you ended up with the only activity that had not reached its quota—gardening. If truth be told, it should have been called ‘weeding’. Ten long Friday afternoons of back-breaking, sun-stroke inducing work on the school’s vegetable patch. The tennis-playing-surfer-dudes would saunter back, sneering at your dirty knees and your indecisiveness.

Nine seconds.

Now, here you are again. A decision to be made and you’re vacillating. Is any decision that important? If you zig when you should have zagged, will anyone notice, or get hurt, or die even? No? Maybe? Yes? You play the ‘What if?’ game with yourself at least five times a day. If you choose one outfit over another, what will they think? Will they hate you? Will they hire you? Will they laugh at you? Will they perhaps even talk about you behind your back? It paralyses you; stops you from enjoying life, and appreciating other people. You miss out on experiences and lose yourself.

Now this decision. There is limited time and you’ve almost used up half of it, and not constructively either. There are solutions, of course, there always are. You just need to pluck one out of the air and run with it. But which one? 

Eight seconds.

Okay, so some decisions are more important than others—like should you say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to that marriage proposal? That’s a biggie. Do I start smoking? Also a biggie; life and death decision right there. Should you have that last tequila before hopping behind the wheel of the car? Okay, okay another biggie. So, you think not being able to make a choice now is proving your point? It’s not, this is not one of those decisions. 

Seven seconds.

Then why are your palms sweating? You think what you do next here, is going to have lasting ramifications? And if you make the ‘wrong’ decision, no one will ever forgive you? You envision a domino effect, you think this will continue on through your life; that this one decision, good or bad, will affect you forever. Life is a game, my friend, a series of plays. But you seem to make them all perplexing. Well, now you’ve wasted all that time, now what? 

Six seconds.

More than half the sand is through the hour-glass, these are the days of your life. The precious moments you are spending procrastinating, worrying needlessly, are adding up to so many wasted opportunities. Do you see the doors slamming in your face, or hear them closing quietly behind you while you dither? And when one door closes and another one opens, do you spend time worrying about the one you didn’t go through? And so the merry-go-round continues for you. 

Five seconds.

Doesn’t it drive you mad at night? Do these indecisions, these lost opportunities worry you, annoy you, distress you? Drip, drip, drip, like a tap dripping on your consciousness; waterboarding you, wearing away your sanity. How long can you stand it? Even in your dreams, you can’t make decisions. Someone is chasing you, do you stay and fight or run away. Fight or flight? Even your subconscious is indecisive.

Four seconds.

Now you are feeling nauseous, or is it nauseated? Someone corrected you the other day, now you’re not sure. The only thing you are sure of is that you feel sick and you’re running out of time.

Three seconds.

Exams were hellish in school, especially multiple choice. Not just A or B, which would have been bad enough, but A, B, C or D, or all of the above. You always chose that given the option; all of the above. Why can’t all of life’s questions, big or small, have that option? Yes, you will have one of everything on the menu. No more saying to yourself that that dish looks so much better, why didn’t you order that? Every shoe in every style; your favourite sweater in every colour; every movie at the cinema. And the supermarket, oh God, the supermarket. Need milk? Yes? Well, there’s full cream, no-fat, low-fat, lactose-free, soy, almond, rice, organic, raw, kefir, even hemp. Twenty minutes later, you need bread; white, wholemeal, wholegrain, soy and linseed, five seeds, ancient grains, low G.I., high fibre. Forty minutes later, do you really need shampoo this week?

Two seconds.

Beads of sweat break out on your brow. Everyone is looking at you. You wipe your sweaty hand across your sweaty brow. Two wrongs don’t make a right this time.

A life on hold. Maybe you need professional help; a counsellor, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a priest? Or do you go the ‘natural’ route; a spiritual healer, a hypnotist, a shaman? Perhaps you would benefit from a holiday, a silent retreat; no distractions, no talking, no reading, no writing, no phones. Someone else deciding what you eat, when you sleep. No one relying on you to get things right or get things done. Nothing to get wrong, to muck-up. Heaven on earth. Not like now. This decision could affect everyone here, make their lives more difficult if you get it wrong, and embarrass you as a final blow.

The sand is nearly gone. It seems to be moving faster. Why can’t you take your eyes off it? It mesmerizes you. The last few grains rush through to join the rest. Time’s up. No more dilly-dallying. Make a decision, dammit.

One second.

“Jack, come on man. Your time’s up. Put down a word, any word. I’m begging you. It’s just a game.”

E-X-O-R-C-I-Z-E

One double letter, two triple word scores, 237 points. 

You sit back and realize, sometimes it pays to be indecisive.