Why do we become Indecisive?

Mike

Mike

Well-known Member
Location
London
When you are young, you know that you can do anything
without thinking or any training, but as you get older, we
get more wary about what might go wrong, at least I have
started to be like this.

Why?

I always said that if your dreams don't frighten you, then
you are not ambitious enough and I lived most of my life
to that belief, yet now I find that I am hesitant, but then
I am out of new ambitions at the moment.

Do any of you find life similar to this?

Mike.
 

My life is your words, Mike.

As we age we grow wiser, more reserved, and we are able to better wade through life in a more mindful way, one where we stop and tap into any/all reservations we may have before doing.

So grateful I am for having reached this point and stage in my life.
 
We look back over our lives when we are older and realize some of the grave mistakes we made, hindsight is painful. We see if we had gone left, instead of right, our whole lives might have been better. Now we are too old to make serious mistakes. We realize there are no redos.

With that knowledge, we become indecisive. Preferring to stay in place rather than make any more life changing mistakes. I, personally, have made enough mistakes for two lifetimes, possibly three. But when I look back, I do not see any other choices as most of my options were not good anyway.

Now I prefer to coast along, making little decisions, that may improve my life, but certainly won’t harm it. There is just not enough time left, at 74, to live on the edge.
 
A history of bad decisions make me tentative, uncertain...
How come 'the good decisions' don't come to fore?
Then we have to paw through our personal history--which would make anyone question themselves.
 
All my life I was the decision guy. Push, push, push. Bad decisions? sure we all make those but I always pushed the calculated risk and achieved more often than not. I was very active in sports, racing, and more.
At 65 I am trying to make less decisions in my life. Slow down on purpose. My body hurts. I can't run and some days I have a hard time walking. I have a hard time with stairs. I've broken so many bones I have sit and count. I want to enjoy whatever days I have left that I am mobile. I have decided to have less things to decide.
 
Question:

Why do we become Indecisive?​


Answer:

Because we simply can't make up our minds!

There is a concept called "the paradox of choice". When we have too many choices, whatever choice we do make, we are always second-guessing ourselves, wondering if one or more of the other choices we didn't take, would have been better.

Tony
 
Mike said:
When you are young, you know that you can do anything
without thinking or any training, but as you get older, we
get more wary about what might go wrong, at least I have
started to be like this.
Click to expand...

It could be the Dunning-Kruger effect that causes young people to be overly confident.

From Wikipedia: the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from people's inability to recognize their lack of ability.

As we acquire more knowledge and experience failures, most of us attain a more accurate appraisal of our abilities, and we aren't as confident in our ability to "do anything."

That could be part of it. Another may be our willingness to experience hardship in order to achieve our goals when we're young.

When I was 20 and barely getting by financially, I went down to Texas for more opportunities with just over $100 in my pocket after paying for the plane ticket. The thought of becoming homeless down there didn't really cross my mind, even though it was a real threat. If that would have happened, I would have just dealt with it. Thankfully, I found a job after being down there for two days, and things worked out pretty well, compared to what my life was before going down there.

I couldn't imagine being homeless now. I couldn't imagine moving to another city with only... what's $100 adjusted for inflation?... about $500 and no job lined up. It's just not something I would even consider. I'm not willing to suffer that much at my age. At the age of 20, everything is one big adventure and our sense of consequence is not yet fully developed. Our morals aren't fully developed at that age, either, and we're willing to do more to get what we want, even if it might be illegal or hurt others.
 
I live by "Murphy's Law"....if something can go wrong, it probably will. As a result, before I put myself into a position where I could get physically hurt...yardwork, chain sawing, etc., I always try to pause for a bit, and visualize what might happen if I do something wrong, then try to opt for the best way to do it. So far, so good. That way of thinking has become almost 2nd nature. In my younger years, it seemed as if I tried to rush through anything, I wound up making a mistake, or hurting myself. My reactions, etc., are not what they used to be, so now, I try to be very careful. Even when driving, I keep a close eye on surrounding traffic, and assume that every approaching vehicle might veer into my lane, and cause me to have to take evasive action.
 
Don't think indecisive is where I am. Age combined with life's experiences has me pause to question if I can control a critical situation or let it go. Trivial stuff a no brainer. As for ambition retirement was the last great ambition. Glad to say really successful at that.
 
I became more indecisive the day I realized that I no longer had the physical ability to support myself.

It became much more important to make good decisions about financial matters and most decisions do have a financial factor.
 
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