Decisions and the 7th Heaven Phenomenon

by Lauren

We've all been talking so much about choices and decisions lately that I think I've started to see it in everything I do. I like to call it the "7th Heaven Phenomenon." Remember that show on the WB, 7th Heaven? If you don't, where have you been this past decade?

For those of you who did watch, I'm sure you remember that every episode had a "theme" and that you could tell exactly what was going to happen to each individual character after the first five minutes. It would become immediately clear that this was going to be a "don't discriminate" episode, or a "teen pregnancy" episode, or an episode about any number of lessons to be learned.

That's how I've been feeling lately about choices and decisions. Now that I've opened up about the stresses of making decisions, I feel like I'm bombarded with them everywhere I go. It's only noon and I've already had to decide on breakfast, coffee, what to do today, what movie theater to go to tonight with my family... insanity! Sometimes I feel incapable of making even the smallest decisions and now I notice them oh so much more.

But I've found the solution.

A couple days ago, I was telling Nicole that I thought she should read a book by Paulo Coelho called The Alchemist. I recommended it to her because she was looking for a road trip book to read before our trip, and even though The Alchemist isn't exactly about a road trip, it is about traveling and a journey of discovery.

Last night, I pulled The Alchemist out of my bookcase and put it aside to lend to Nicole the next time I see her. It's definitely a "pay it forward" kind of book. Someone gives it to you, then you have to share it with someone else. Brent bought me a copy, so I'm giving it to Nicole to read next, and if she loves it the way I did, I hope she'll recommend it to someone else, and so on, and so on....

Now, here's where I think fate stepped in. I opened the book to a completely random page and read the first paragraph my eyes rested on, and here is what it said:

He still had some doubts about the decision he had made. But he was able to understand one thing: making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.

I have to say, this definitely made me relax a little about the whole decision-making process, because I can't see the future, I can't say what my choices will lead to - good or bad - so why should I be so stressed about making them?

I think one of those choices, for the three of us, was to participate in this road trip. We can map out our itinerary, schedule interviews, pick places to stop at along the way, but really - do we know where the road is going to take us? A few lines down from the paragraph I quoted above, the main character thinks:

And joining this caravan may have been my decision, but where it goes is going to be a mystery to me.

And I think that's exactly what we, too, are doing. We're joining each other in this journey with no idea where it will take us.