"You have to Decide."

I received my ballot for the general election in the mail a few days ago, and I've been poring over my options trying to decide which candidate is better than the others and which measures to support or reject. But don't worry. This isn't a political post. It's about decision-making.

I read somewhere that humans make 35,000 decisions a day. That sounds like an astounding number until we consider the things we do on a daily basis. There's the decision to get up or not, what to wear to work, whether or not to go to work, making the bed or keeping it unmade. I guess the decision not to make a decision can also be a decision. Of course we some decisions are more important than others. The decision of what to have for breakfast doesn't carry as much weight as moral decisions or decisions of what to do for the rest of your life.

I have mentioned on several occasions that one of my personal heroes is Pope St. John Paul II. I am fond of him because of his work with university students and his unwavering commitment to morality even when the wave of modern culture wanted to shake him and evil forces sought to wrestle those young souls away. He loved the people who called him father, and they knew it. (How many times have we heard young people say, "JP II, we love you" only to hear him respond, "JP II, he loves you too!") According to an account by his biographist, George Weigel, he listened but he didn't tell them what to do. Instead, he would say, “You have to decide.” And he said this to them knowing that they some of them were engaging in risky behavior. Rather than condemning them, he gave them the freedom to exercise their own autonomy. And he insisted that they make a decision rather than staying in the neutral zone between virtue and vice.

This is a theme that has been coming up a lot lately because I'm seeing the consequences of decisions, whether they are my own or the decisions of those around me. I know that sometimes the decisions I make in good conscience aren't going to make me popular. In fact, they may even make me the opposite. They may make others dismiss me as old-fashioned or even judgmental. But at the end of the day, they are my decisions to make. And I am learning to stand firm in them rather than wavering from one side to the other.

I think that's part of what makes JP II so heroic. He didn't waver even if it meant someone may stomp away from him, claiming he didn't understand life or that his expectations were too high or too extreme. In our modern age we are so quick to claim that we don't want to offend or that we have to avoid hurting feelings and therefore refuse to support one thing and reject another. But we can't stay undecided forever. Hot water can be used to cook food. A glass of cold water is refreshing on a hot summer day. Lukewarm water is useless. Likewise, choosing to hot stay neutral when it comes to a button topic is useless. When it comes to choosing between right and wrong, the hope is that we choose virtue over vice.