Why Can't I Make Up My Mind?

Before, I always thought of myself as a decisive person.

This was reinforced by the fact that the Big B is one of the most indecisive people I've ever met. (That's an exaggeration--it just feels that way because I'm around for so many of his decisions.).

I always forget this whenever he comes with grocery shopping, until I see him agonizing over which microwave lunch meal he wants. I usually stand impatiently behind him when he does this, not understanding why he must deliberate his choices for so long.

If it were me and I really couldn't choose, I'd either hold them both behind me and have him pick one randomly, or have him pick one purposefully. Inevitably, no matter which method is used, the lucky winning choice usually just makes me realize that all along I really wanted to do the other. (Murphy's Law ensures that no matter what is chosen, it's never what I've been leaning towards subconsciously all along).

When we were picking out a flatscreen TV together for our bedroom when last we moved, we spent over 2 hours in the Best Buy while going back and forth from one TV to another. When we finally whittled it down to two choices, we must have worn a new path on the floor from going  back from one to the other obsessively before I finally got tired enough to put my foot down and say "This one!" and thus end the wishy-washy back and forth.

For the little things that are fairly straightforward, like planning our meals for the week or what route to take home while driving, I have no problem making a decision and sticking to it.

For things that are less black & white, like choosing which fabric for a costume or what color to paint my toenails, I will waver and go over my choices, but once I've chosen, I'm typically happy with my choice and content to let it be.

Apparently, this does not extend to big things that I'm not at all sure about, like what I want to do for a career for the rest of my life.

You'd think that attending college on and off for the past 9 years would indicate that I know exactly what I'm doing for a career.

Okay, maybe the 9 years is actually an indicator that I didn't know what I wanted to do. Honestly--I just was dragging my feet getting it done, letting other things like work or finances get in the way of completing school.

But enough is enough--I am chomping at the bit to be DONE. I don't want to have to worry about homework, or grades, or projects, or presentations anymore.
Faced with my little Excel spreadsheet neatly listing all the courses I need, the times they're available next year and the number of credits, I find myself on a see-saw of indecision.

You see, I'm at the very last point to change my major without it causing me to have to backtrack. This means that right now, I can change my major and it will still only cost me the same amount in tutition as sticking with my current choice would.

This is a problem because this is already the 3rd time I've declared a different major in almost as many years. Before that, I hadn't even chosen my major. They push you to declare in your sophomore year, but I found as I completed my general courses and the ones required for all business administration degrees that my interest would be piqued by a new topic of study and invariably I'd put it on my list of "things I'd possibly like to do for the rest of my life".

How can you choose between marketing, finance, accounting, supply chain, information systems, etc, if you haven't experienced any of them in depth? I mean, I'm good with numbers and I currently work in a bank, so accounting or finance would seem to be no brainers, right? Wrong--I HATED my accounting courses with a passion reserved only for raccoons, and as for my finance class--well let's just say that I squeaked by and I was just fine with that.

Compounding the problem was the large expanses of time between classes and the slower pace from being a part-time student. There were times when I didn't take a single class all semester long, and even one year that I skipped out entirely. My mindset was that I had plenty of time to get it all done...

Then BAM! I'm getting married and there's talk of geeklings, and the one thing I know is that my procrastinating butt will NEVER finish if a baby pops out. It would be the ultimate cop-out for me, and this close to the end, I can't let it happen.

Maybe that would actually work in my favor if I did birth a baby geek before walking down that graduation aisle, but I'm not willing to take the chance, and as it so happens, both of us would like to be more financially secure before we start putting buns in the oven.

Either way, I am seeing that I should reach that exaulted position of "Graduate" by this time next year.

This means I have to make a choice, and this time around, there won't be any going back unless I want to pay more and continue to take classes. While I might not mind attending school again in the future, once the geeklings are attending their own classes, what I had in mind for that timeframe was more of going back to school to get a masters degree, not finishing up my undergraduate degree.

That's the horns of my dilemma. This will be a FINAL choice, in every sense of the word.

How incredibly daunting it is to pick something to do for the rest of your life. Whatever it is, it needs to fill several requirements:

1. Be something I'm good at. I want to be successful (who doesn't?) and I'm pretty sure I need to be good at what I'm doing in order to reach that goal.
2. I want to enjoy what I'm doing. I used to think I'd be happy no matter what I chose because really I just like working with people, and afterall, how many jobs don't require you to work with people in some way, shape or form? Now I realize that I do have preferences, especially sticking away from anything involving ledgers or serious math. Life is way too short to be spending the majority of it doing something you hate. Even if it's just okay, I feel that's not good enough in the long term.
3. I want to make comfortable money. Let's face it, money is a necessary evil in this day and age, and as much as I wish it didn't matter, I don't want to struggle the rest of my life and live paycheck to paycheck. Plus, with the mountain of student loans piling up, I at least need to make back my investment.

When I chose my major for the third time (not counting the umpteen times I debated on majors in my head) I felt pretty good about it. It seemed interesting, it was a field that many instructors assured me over and over was one of the few careers not glutted with an over-abundance of job seekers, and the earning potential was very nice. Because I'm a glutten for punishment I also chose a minor that was semi-related to my major.

Then I started actually taking the courses required for my latest choice. I quickly discovered something that led me to my current position:

I liked my minor courses more than the ones for my major.

Not only did I like them more, but I was doing much better grade-wise as well. That's probably directly linked. No, not probably--almost certainly.

So do I stick with my last choice and keep things as they are? Or do I make a change once again (risking the wrath of my college advisor who I must meet with anytime I declare a major) and potentially face indecision once again in the future?

When I'm done beating my head against a wall over this and still haven't come up with an answer (the little red procrastinator-imp on my shoulder tells me I can wiffle-waffle until August since technically I won't take classes until after Labor Day), maybe I should go with my time honored tradition of asking someone else to pick for me, in the hopes that this will make my own preferences more clear.

Tell me, dear loyal few...

Do I stay or do I go?