The Burden of Making Decisions

ONE of the most difficult things in life is making decisions and taking responsibility for them. Indeed, the mental and moral burden of making decisions usually weighs men down much more than physical labor. Often there is much at stake to increase the tension: success or failure, happiness or unhappiness, right or wrong, and even life or death. And because decisions are so difficult to make, people often seek to share with others the responsibility of making them, and often attempt to avoid making them at all. When things go well, there are many who are willing to share the credit, and when they don’t go well, there are few who are willing to share the blame. And often part of the reason why we seek advice from others (in addition to our desire for their judgment and experience) is so that, morally at least, we can place part of the burden of our decisions on shoulders other than our own. This is especially true when we do something wrong or fail to do something right. In our desire to justify ourselves we often point to those who may have advised us badly, or to those who may have set us an improper example, and we explain that we did what we did because we saw someone else do it or because we were advised to do it. But no matter how vigorously we attempt to side-step responsibility, and no matter how much counsel or advice we have received, and no matter whose example we have followed, there inevitably come times in the lives of all of us when we cannot avoid making our own decisions and being responsible for them. Our parents may make some decisions for us, and we often make decisions for our own children. Advisers and counselors may make some decisions for us. When we are ill or incapacitated, it may be necessary for others to make some decisions for us and to take responsibility for them. But when we are in possession of our faculties and have reached an age of accountability, no matter who tells to do a wrong thing, if we know it to be a wrong thing, or are capable of knowing it to be a wrong thing, the final responsibility, in full or in part, rests with each of us. There are some things a man must do for himself, and making up his mind what he should do and what he wants to do is one of them.