The cost of not making a choice
There are wrongs we inflict on other people, and there are wrongs we inflict on ourselves. This post is about the latter. In my experience, the crimes we commit against ourselves occur in those moments when we know what we need to do to honor our deepest, truest, most creatively-alive self, and instead of doing it, we chicken out. We tell ourselves what we want isn’t logical. We assure ourselves that other people will be upset and that it might endanger our income/relationships/professional image. We convince ourselves we can make the compromise work. We begin to believe we really didn’t want to make the change anyway…
I know these compromises firsthand. Two of the most painful decisions I didn’t make in my life still haunt me. In both instances, I sacrificed what I knew to be right to satisfy others’ expectations. In both instances, the choice cost me a part of myself. The worst part? My self-betrayal benefitted no one. Eventually my soul survival demanded that I make the choices I’d shirked making years earlier, and the fall-out from this damaged others far more deeply than if I’d followed my inner guidance when it first prompted me to act.
There are costs that come from making a choice, and there are costs that come from avoiding a choice. We’re schooled in how to weigh the pros and cons of a choice before we make it, but few of us dare to look at the cost of avoidance. We tell ourselves we can make the wrong decision work. We assure ourselves that we can learn to love the option our hearts know we need to avoid. In those moments we know we’re compromising on something we shouldn’t; we know we’re choosing the “safe” answer, even when our souls are screaming at us to do something different.
Life is change. Every non-decision is a decision. Every decision either made or avoided brings its own cost. Our job is to pull up our big kid pants, embrace what we know is the right path for us, choose, and then to face the consequences of our choice. Sometimes the cost is low. Sometimes it costs dearly. In those moments when we know that choosing what we don’t want will inflict irreparable self-damage, we have to take a deep breath, do our best to mitigate collateral damage, and follow our inner guidance.
This is a hard lesson to learn. When a choice is a big one that affects others, someone will inevitably be confused or angry about what we know we need to do. It doesn’t help that many times we have to walk away from what we’ve been doing without having a clear sense of the new direction. But here’s what I know: when a career path, or relationship, or life stage, or creative approach has come to its natural conclusion, it’s deadly to try to hang on to it. Nothing thrives in captivity. When we’re afraid to release the parts of our lives that we’ve outgrown, our timidity condemns us to a twilight where our souls slowly suffocate. We can’t stop time. We can’t stop growing and changing. We can’t put new projects or new life stages into old forms. It’s dangerous to trim our own sails for the sake of satisfying outside expectations. If we keep doing things the way we always have once the fire’s gone out, we will kill our creative spark. That spark needs the oxygen of new air and new ideas to thrive.
And so, we we approach the end of 2025, I ask this:
In what ways are you betraying yourself because your fear keeps you from walking away from creative stages you’ve outgrown?
What projects have you outgrown?
What ways of making music do you want to leave lovingly in 2025 so that you can make room for what the new year offers?
Maybe we can use this winter solstice time to listen. We already know what we need to do, all we have to do is stop ignoring it. And when we hear what our hearts have been begging us to do, maybe we can be brave enough to accept the cost of making that change. Maybe, in doing so, we can leave all that doesn’t serve us behind and walk into 2026 with our hands open.
Photo by Pascal Debrunner, courtesy of UpSplash