Freedom is the absence of choice vs autonomy

There is a lot of territory to cover between a simple and sensible decision (which toothbrush should I choose?) where the consequences are small potatoes and something as monumental as buying a house, having a child, moving to another country or ending a marriage. With the second category the pros and cons are harder to weigh up and the consequences far-reaching. The reason buying a house is so hard is that most people (barring seasoned developers) only do it a couple of times in their lives max, and don’t know very much about its complexities. There aren’t many opportunities to practice.

I don’t know if escaping into some idealised utopia of decision making in the actual world is necessarily helpful. I think it’s better to see your ‘back and forth’ as resulting from emotional conflict that can be investigated. Then once that’s done, and you’ve done your homework you can plunge ahead. Sometimes in life processes are more akin to a ball in a pin-ball machine than a linear move from A to B!

But I agree that there is definitely this ‘que sera, sera’ aspect to the big decisions now after AF. But I still do think about the big decisions. As to whether this will become a smooth and choiceless movement where all decisions seem inevitable and utterly natural in the future, remains to be seen.

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