The challenge of turning the page
On Thursday it will have been two years since I hosted my last radio show, and one of the challenges I've had to stare down is a tendency to second guess my decisions.
I’ve always had a tendency to regret my decisions.
At least that’s what my Mom told me, laughing the way mothers do while recounting the foibles of their kids. She’d then begin to tell me about how — when I was little — she’d tell me to go ahead pick one toy out when we were at the store. I’d take a long time, laboring over the decision, before she’d tell me I had to choose. We’d get home and everything would be great. For about a half hour.
“Then you’d just start crying,” she said, “and insist that you really wanted the other toy you hadn’t picked.”
The one example of this that I remember quite clearly involved an action figure from the movie, “The Black Hole.” I don’t remember what toy I picked instead. I just remember I didn’t pick that action figure and wound up wishing I had.1
My Mom would calmly apply a little logic and a whole lot of patience.
“We’d tell you, ‘But Danny, if you had picked the other toy, you’d be crying right now that this is the one that you really wanted.’ “
This story – as trivial as it may seem – illustrates a deeper truth about the way I interact with the world around me, how I understand myself. When I experience a disappointment – or in the case of a toy, less joy than I had hoped – I tend to chalk this up to a faulty decision that I’ve made. I don’t think I’m unique in this regard, and I don’t event think this is necessarily a bad way of seeing the world. Those people who unerringly blame their disappointments on the actions of others tend to have their own issues. I’d advise against working for one of those people if you can help it.
I bring all of this up because Thursday is Aug. 31, which marks the two-year anniversary of the last show I hosted at a Seattle sports station, and while I haven’t ever resorted to crying about my decisions that led up to that event, I have certainly second-guessed myself.