Manu Joseph: Why is decision-making a lonely process?

livemint.com:

One way to irritate writers is to ask them what they are working on next. But somehow I heard myself ask this in an airport lounge when I bumped into a British historian, even though I liked him. He looked pained, but that was only because he wanted to answer the question earnestly, and it had evoked a private misery.

He was torn between some options and was undecided between a book, podcast or documentary. He had to pick one because only amateurs do too many things at once. A professional has to bet on the best path.

Every decision he makes would cost him months, even years, at the expense of other pursuits. Then he said something intriguing. He said he couldn’t decide and there was nobody he could turn to.

“Nobody can help you," he said. He pointed to his wife who was sitting right next to him. Even she won’t be able to help, he said.

She can only listen, take in the facts, but the decision has to be his, and he had been in its throes for weeks. She, as is often the case with wives, was not surprised. She had heard it before and probably agreed.

This is a pleasant successful man with his own tribe of peers who care for him, friends and a loving home. Yet, he is alone when he has to make crucial decisions. That is the nature of decisions.

This is true not only of major decisions. Actually, major decisions have disproportionate grandeur because they are ‘major.’ Most people have to make a major decision very few times in their lives, if ever. I, for instance, have never had to make a ‘major’ decision.

I have been seriously wrong about one or two important things, but I did not get there by deciding. I got there by being certain. I suspect that when people look back at their lives, some of the decisions they once