String Theory

I have long prescribed to the theory that life is a string of decisions. Surely, your life will go one way or another, be mostly bad or mostly good, but a lot of it depends on decisions. Decisions you make, your parents make, your grandparents make, you neighbor, government, phone company, friends, and random stranger make.

Lately I have been making bad decisions.

However, I did finish the term with a 3.72 GPA. The only class I got a B in was Economic Development. I got a B because I made a decision. I decided not to study - ever. Besides the 10 billion hour research paper that I wanted to stab my eyes out over, it worked out well for me.

But it was still a "bad" decision.

It was a bad decision that worked out well. Now, you tell me why I've been so confused about life lately? Looking at my life as an outsider things are gooooood. But I will be the first to tell you - my life right now is in shambles and I'm having a quarter-life crisis and day-by-day all I want to do is get up and disappear, go live in Greece or somewhere warm and sunny and be a day laborer.

So bad decisions that return good results may be bad decisions still. I mean, what makes a decision bad? The reason for making it or the outcome?

For instance: I'm in Central PA currently and this morning I had the newspaper with my Kashi cereal. The front page headlines are as follows: Buy Cooking Tickets for Some Class, Biden Swears on National Television, Three of My Classmates from Public School went to Jail, oh and yea, They Passed the Healthcare Bill.

Some of those are funny for obvious reasons (come on, who thought local cooking classes were more important than the Health bill which was passed awhile ago?) but three of my former classmates got arrested.

Mostly for burglary, assault, and drugs. Not the smartest people, not the smartest decisions.

I also found out two of my former co-workers (who were my age, one has a kid) got arrested and landed in jail - for drugs.

So, maybe the most important decision of my life was leaving this small town and getting out into the big city. And the next most important decision of my life may be moving out of Pennsylvania into the great unknown (read: West Coast/Europe/South America).

Or maybe the next big decision will be picking a career that won't suck. Who knows.

So what do you think? What makes a decision bad - the reason for making it or the outcome?