Day 153: Making Decisions

Day 153.  I’ve been thinking a lot about making decisions lately—not actually making any, mind you, but thinking about making them.  Probably because there seems to be a ridiculous amount of them to make, especially around my new venture and my film projects.  Decisions are everywhere from the minute we wake up though.  I have to decide to get out of bed.  I have to decide what I’m eating for breakfast.  I have to decide what to wear to work.  I have to decide whether to go to work—not that most of us have an option on that one if we want to eat and have a roof over our heads.  I have to decide how to spend my time.  I have to decide what brand of toilet paper to buy.  It’s an onslaught of endless decision making all damn daylong.  Of course, the majority of the daily decisions we make aren’t given much thought.  My breath stinks so I’d better brush my teeth.  Done.  Not a big deal.  I’m hungry.  I decide to eat.  Not much to vacillate on there.  But, if it’s something big or difficult, sometimes I even have to make the decision to make a decision in the first place.  I’m sure that’s my convenient way of delaying the inevitable of actually making a decision.  I need to work on that.

I'm thinking...

For now, I have to wrap my mind around making many decisions for all of my projects to move them forward in the coming weeks.  Scripts and directors and schedules, oh my.  Which reminds me, I did actually crack open my screenplay yesterday.  And what I realized is that in order to get back into pages I have to make several decisions about my male lead character and the story before I can actually write another word.  I’m sure that’s what I’ve been resisting the last couple of days.  Making decisions.  Yeah.  Because once you make a decision then, obviously, you have to live with that decision.  And if it turns out not to be the right one, well, it’s lost time, it’s throwing out scenes, it’s awkward conversations and it’s back to the drawing board.  Let’s face it, making a wrong decision sucks.  The fear of making the wrong decision is probably why I put off making a decision for as long as I can.  But, if I don’t make any decisions nothing will ever get done.  Pesky decisions!  Okay, at this moment, right now, I make the decision to make decisions today!  Woo hoo!

Uh oh.  Hold on.  Full disclosure.  Two seconds after I made that decision and typed “woo hoo,” I had a moment of panic but quickly calmed myself with the follow up thought, “I can just make another decision not to make any decisions later.”  Oh well.  It’s still a decision.

Until tomorrow, create from what you have…decisions.

Kelli Joan Bennett is a filmmaker, actress, writer, entrepreneur, advocate for creative thinking and Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Think Outside The Box Inside The Box Media. Follow @FromWhatYouHave