Anyone else highly stressed about decisions?

[SymmetryOfImperfection]

I'm stressing out bad. Decisions are tomorrow and I haven't made them. I'm scared for my future because this one decision will decide my next 4-5 years and possibly the rest of my life. I can't sleep.

 

Every time I want to make a choice and get done with it, I think back to my huge mistake selecting my first college major. I thought I wanted to do something, but it turns out that it was a mistake that was extremely costly to only partially recover.

 

I made the choice to go into physics and that was a great choice, but the price for picking a wrong school wasn't so big. I just went with my feelings at the time. Now the price for picking wrong is 100x bigger. This is the last degree I will ever get and it will supercede all the other stuff I've done before. I'm scared.

Edited April 15, 2014 by SymmetryOfImperfection

[timetobegin]

What's really holding you back?

 

Which one is the better program? Which one is the better city? What's really the most important factor for you? Which one gives you a better "overall" gut feeling, or do none of them? You can research and research, but sometimes too much research can be a bad thing. It'll give you false expectations, or you'll have trouble adjusting and going with the flow because you'll think "I researched this program and this situation/feeling/event wasn't supposed to happen". You have to stop looking for smaller and smaller scraps of information and just decide. 

 

I did the same thing as you - made a huge mistake selecting my first college (and my major), and it was costly, but I pulled it together and now we're both making decisions about grad school! All it means is that your life-track isn't set in stone, and sometimes you just have to go with the flow. It also gives us both positive experiences: our gut instincts have been right before, and we can bounce back if things don't go as planned. Been there, done that. Why fear it when we survived it?

 

You won't pick wrong, I promise. Your indecision means all schools are good schools, or you wouldn't have applied. Maybe you're thinking that if you pick one, you'll lose opportunities the others will give you? It's sort of a false sense of security, because right now, you don't really have any opportunities. But by picking one school, you're going to get those experiences, and everything will suddenly be wide open. Stop comparing schools, trying to determine which one will lead you where. This sounds cheesy as hell, but think about where you plan to go with your degree, and then maybe the choice will be easier.

 

My advice is to get some sleep, set your alarm for 5am, and then make your decision while you're tired and want to go back to bed. At 5am, your brain will decide what's really important, and you'll make a faster decision.

Edited April 15, 2014 by timetobegin