"I got lucky, what can I say, but it isnt always this way"
2009-09-14, 9:18 p.m.

So the Kanye West/Taylor Swift/Beyonce fiasco yesterday (I was watching the VMA's and actually saw it! It was almost as cool as the "you lie!" incident).
Kanye's a tool and we all know that, Taylor Swift is incredibly annoying and not someone I at all admire, and completely thought her video was shit (and not very original). (Also am weirded out that the musicians are credited for the videos. What about the directors? )
All that to say I dont feel one way or another about the whole incidient. It's the culture of MTV. That's exactly why I watched at all- to get some crazy action. Thanks Kanye, great publicity stunt! (Still think you're a douche!)

Topic number two for today; My decision making model.

I put a lot of stock into decisions because all my life it's been important to me that no matter what my decision turns out to be, I deal with it, take responsibility for it, stick to it, and never ever allow regret to even sneak into the fettle surrounding the decision.
I know that I've removed possibility of regret from my mind, and that whatever doubts I had are banished- I just refuse to allow myself the luxury of indulging in them.
So then when I make a decision, that's my thought process. Once I've made a decision permanent it isn't hard at all for me to stick to it. If I remove myself from something, or get myself into something (out of a relationship, or into a cause or organization), I cement myself into a personal logic and emotional process that it's very hard to remove myself from simply because I stop allowing myself to consider alternatives, as I would do in any potentially normal decision making process, or in development of personal ideologies (where my most frequently used strategy is play it by ear, and my mantra is bend like the willow tree).

Examples of permanent decsions; Going into school psychology. I was agonizing for ages over whether I should go into botany, staying up at night, crying once I was in grad school for school psych and mooning over the posters in the bio department. I wanted so badly to work in agriculture, make deserts bloom, traverse the amazon looking for some rare form of some bizarre plant. When I was a kid, I used to fantasize that I was this great botanist who found this special plant that was the cure for all cancer. When my dad got me a microscope one birthday, I put every single plant I could find under that thing, dyed em, sliced em, etc. (note, I also was ok with being a marine biologist). In college I set the curve in my economic botany class, and probably loved it more than any other class I took (though Genetics was also beyond amazing. But we'll stick to subject matter, and not just professors).

But I realized that there's a difference between doing what you think will make you happy, and being fulfilled. The meaning of being fulfilled is a personal, subjective one. Choosing school psych would let me fulfill all of my passions, and cause the least amount of sacrifice.
When I finally figured out that being a school psychologist didn't mean I had to give up biology, and came with all the flexibility I wanted in a career as well as addressed things in life that I'm most passionate about, you could throw the most boring text book about shit I don't believe in (IQ tests) my way and I was happy. Emotionally grad school has just been amazing since I made that permanent, final decision to stick to it.

That's a big decision though. I agonized over it for months while we were going through assessment and I wanted to gouge out my eyeballs.

But I use the same techniques with other, less consequential (or more, considering personal priorities) decisions.

It's worked for me when I sacrificed for my family. When I backed away from hat guy, when I came to NOLA despite certain people in my life refusing to talk to me for 3 months because of that decision, among other things.

The key? Making that decision when you're ready for it, when you're beyond certain that you've considered all your options exhaustively, when you've gone over every scenario that might come about as a consequence NOT ONLY, or even primarily with your mind, but foremost with your heart.

I might possibly have one of those moments in front of me right now. I have to make a decision, and it's one of those ones that's got to be permanent. I don't know if it's really gotten to that point yet, but it's working it's way there. It's so funny to think two, three weeks from now I could be dealing with that permanent decision, and only today I wasn't even sure that I would have to.

Note: I'm still waiting for this decision making process of mine to bite me in the ass.

Note 2: Patrick swayze died!!
http://jezebel.com/5359387/patrick-swayze-dies-at-age-57