Make smart decisions, skip the regret

We all have needs
God included companionship in human creation. It is as vital a need as food and water. It is more than a want and is for many people such an absolute need that they often make rash and irrational decisions. They are more horrified with being alone than they are with being unhappy.

It is impossible to make good decisions when the decision is rooted in the fear of being alone or the fear of being rejected. Worse, still, is the embarrassment that many of us feel that stops us from admitting our need to have someone share our lives with us. Lately our society has lost its compassion for those who express that need. It seems far more fashionable to act as if we don’t need anyone. But while this may get you a good amen at the water cooler in the office, in reality, it doesn’t reflect real facts.

We were created with a need for socialization. There is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling that need. The problem begins when the need has you. Many people today are compulsive when it comes to attracting attention to themselves in order to fulfill their needs, often by someone who doesn’t really fit who they are or where they are going. When you ignore warnings and compromise your principles, it leaves scars that may not ever fully disappear.

Society’s latest craze of detachment and denial of any need for others is not a good goal. And you and I should avoid the tendency to demoralize people just because they want love and socialization in their lives. Many who do admit to being lonely or wanting to be loved are met with stern words and harsh rebuke and told to change their way of thinking. Loving someone is not weak. We must began accepting ourselves for having that need.

You may then go even further by acknowledging that you are someone who flourishes when you are in social environments. Others need a person to support them and, if they have that person, this is all they require. Many people would like a support group that affirms them and gives them a sense of belonging. Either way, it is not wrong to have the need. Most of us get a degree of gratification when we are contributing to someone else’s well-being, and when that effort is appreciated, we feel warm and affirmed. It is not wrong to need either one. It is important to know thyself!

Hard evidence
The first step in making life-changing decisions, even the most personal and emotional ones, without regret is research. Research fuels your decisions by yielding the information on which you can base a sound decision. This is similar to a court case in which the lawyer’s job is to present the evidence on which the jury will reach a verdict and the judge will hand down a decision. The case is no stronger than the evidence that is gathered. The strategy for the trial is formulated on the evidence.

In choosing relationships, make yourself a hard jury, one that is not easily convinced and that requires concrete information before reaching a verdict. The decision rendered by your verdict may alter the quality of your life. It is better to lengthen the deliberation process and insure that the decision is appropriate than to reach a hasty conclusion that traumatizes all those involved.

To those of us who often procrastinate on the decision because we feel intimidated by lack of education or any area of weakness, I would relieve you with this statement: It is not how much you know that arms you with the tools of great decision making, but rather how much you ask. Ask questions. The most intellectual people I’ve ever met were people who asked questions of science, art, religion — questions that most others took for granted. You can never know more than you are willing to ask.

Video   Life lessons from Bishop Jakes Sept. 24: TODAY’s Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford talk to Bishop T.D. Jakes about his new book “Before You Do.” Today show

A friend of mine who is a college professor tells me that usually his brightest students ask the most questions. In fact, he tells his pupils on the first day of class that there are no stupid questions in his classroom. He works hard to create a safe environment for inquiry, due diligence, reflection, and problem solving. The smart ones ask question after question and end up challenging and educating the teacher. What we often characterize as the “terrible twos” when a toddler runs behind a mother asking, “Why, why, why?” is nothing more than the child’s active mind accelerating at a remarkable rate, accumulating and categorizing the received data based on the questions that she dares to ask.

Passive decisions
Knowing who you are and what you want is vital to participating in a successful relationship. While it seems counterintuitive to focus on who you are versus on who the two of you are as a couple, the whole is only as strong as the parts. This is especially true for women. Women have made tremendous gains in our society. After all, it’s not uncommon for a women to be a CEO, a race car driver, or even a presidential candidate. Yet our society, advertising, TV shows, and popular books and magazines still suggest that a woman who is accommodating and demure is far more acceptable and desirable than one who speaks her mind and asks for what she wants.

Truly successful and mutually beneficial relationships are based on each party being truthful and up front about their real wants, desires, and feelings. While certainly as a couple you must make decisions together, decisions about who you are as a person and what you want your life to be are yours alone to make. Allowing someone else — a relationship partner, a friend, a parent, or anyone else — to make decisions for you is a mistake. When you let someone else decide who you are and what you want, you give away the power that God gave to you.

And doing nothing is not making a decision. Sitting back and pretending not to see a situation for what it is or procrastinating about what to do until something happens where you have no choice but to go one way or another is just as bad as letting others make decisions for you. It’s passive and in the end won’t likely serve you very well. Sometimes circumstances are what they are, but you always have the choice to decide who you want to be within them.

We must never attempt to silence that toddler within each of us that continues to question our adult surroundings and selections. That inquisitive process often leads me to consider factors I had never before considered. With my real estate purchase, I had taken a crash course in real estate — asking questions about those twenty-odd houses. I came to understand the laws of zoning and planning in our city. I knew a little more about architectural design. Terms like “finish out” were now part of my vocabulary. “Fair market value” and “comparables” were now in my vocabulary because I kept asking, “Why?” before I made a decision to buy a home that would leave me with a note for the next twenty years.

If you are to make decisions that you will never regret, then you must be willing to think through all the criteria — professional and personal, scientific and subjective, data driven and self satisfying. Much of the anxiety and later regret that come from the weight of your decisions can be alleviated or avoided altogether if you assemble all your information — that which is clearly consequential as well as that which may seem inconsequential — before you do.

Excerpted from “Before You Do: Making Great Decisions That You Won't Regret,” by T.D. Jakes. Copyright (c) 2008 by TDJ Enterprises. Reprinted with permission from Simon and Schuster.

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