I was talking with a friend of my own vintage, who said all of the big decisions in life are over for us. He was referring to the decisions we make as we lift the anchor on our childhoods and begin charting our course as adults.
We made our decision about education years ago—whether to attend college and what to study. We’ve chosen career paths (we’re both writers). We’ve decided who to marry, whether or not to have kids and how many. We’ve planted roots where we live.
These aren’t necessarily permanent decisions. People change careers, they marry more than once, they relocate. But in my case, those big decisions are behind me. It’s liberating not to navigate such monumental choices, and it’s also a tad melancholic that I’ve already decided the “big stuff” of life.
Or have I? Are major decisions still coming my way?
To find out, I performed an analysis using a Venn diagram. Remember those from math class?
A Venn diagram is a visual tool that uses overlapping circles to show similarities and differences between two or more sets. The overlapping parts represent commonalities between the sets, while the separate, non-overlapping parts show unique features of each set.
Here’s a simple Venn diagram example that uses two overlapping circles, although a Venn diagram can consist of multiple overlapping sets (circles). This diagram compares moths and butterflies. Each has unique characteristics. Shared characteristics are shown in the overlap of the two circles.
John Venn, a nineteenth-century English mathematician and logician, invented his namesake visual tool, thereby immortalizing himself. To this day, Venn diagrams are popular and continue to be taught in school from early grades on, and are used to understand data and complex relationships. Venn diagrams are even a choice in PowerPoint, which I used to make my own Venn diagram.
Back to life’s big choices. For my two sets, I chose “Decisions Made” and “Decisions Still to Make.”
I found that I have indeed made most of the life’s big decisions, and the ones that remain are related to life’s twilight. My “awakening” is that some important decisions are not behind me, but remain ongoing, lifelong processes of discovery: the how to live and act decisions, the how to spend my time decisions—what I call “the hours.” (Thank you Michael Cunningham for your incredible novel, The Hours (my review of the novel.)
I could make the case that ‘where to live’ belongs in the overlap between sets: we may not be able to age in place, or we may want to someday move closer to where the kids end up. But I’ve lived in the same house for thirty years, and so I consider that decision largely made.
My main takeaway: my friend is partly right. We have made a lot of life’s big decisions, and yet life remains big, and we face substantial decisions every day.
