Simone Stolzoff

There's a psychologist named Rollo May who says, commitment is healthiest, not in the absence of doubt, but in spite of doubt.

And I think that is really wise.

How can you make decisions in spite of not knowing for sure that reinforce the type of person that you want to be, that refine your character?

I'm thinking specifically about this one moment in my life where I was working as a journalist and I got a job offer to leave journalism to join this design firm.

And I could not make up my mind for the life of me.

I couldn't possibly know whether I would like the design job better than the journalism job until I did it.

That was the source of my agony.

It was looking for certainty about a decision where there was no certainty to be found.

And what helped me make the decision ultimately was

It was a question of what kind of person do I want to be and how does either choice reaffirm some of the values of that potential person.

I had told the recruiter at the design firm that I wanted to take the job.

I was having lots of doubt.

And then I decided, okay, I want to be the type of person that is like good on my word and follows through with what I say.

And maybe this will be the biggest mistake in my life.

And maybe I'll try and come back to journalism with my tail between my legs.

But this is a decision that reinforces the type of person that I want to be.

I think that's a nice question that can be heuristic when you're at one of those crossroads in your life.

I have friends that have like broken up with partners that they regretted and then tried to get them back and were not successful.

I have friends that have taken on incredible amounts of debt to go back to graduate school to pursue a degree that didn't actually lead to job prospects on the other end.

But in general, I think the norm is that even in those sort of catastrophic mistakes, you