Decision Making 101

So I’m pretty sure I suck at decision making. I don’t know why, but I just do. I try really hard to not suck at it, but in the end I seem to make the wrong choice. This is nevermore apparent as in the grocery store or at Target. No matter what, I always end up choosing the line with the person returning 12 items, writing a personal check or filling out the form for a store credit card. This happens if I pick the shortest line or the longest line. I seem to always manage to pick the line that is going to take me the longest.


With big decisions, I take my time and reason it all the way through. I try to balance my gut feelings with common sense and rationale. I compute things, make lists and conjure up different scenarios and consequences. And just when I think I have it all figured out and make the decision, I am suddenly overcome with the feeling that I screwed up. Evan is constantly telling me how my brain and my heart never seem to play nice with each other and I have to agree. There is constant conflict between the two and I’m never quite sure who wins.

Case in point: I recently accepted and started a full-time position. Let me provide a little background…I was laid off from my job in CO in October and had severance through the end of the year. Score! So during that time I was looking for jobs in CA everyday. Because I wanted to try the acting thing, I was really focusing on part-time design or marketing work. Well, part-time jobs proved to be few and far between (except in retail and restaurants, but I wasn’t ready to go there yet), so I started applying for everything. In mid-January, I received a job offer…scratch that, I received TWO job offers…on the same day…within hours of each other.

Now, the first job I was offered was awesome. It was doing marketing for a local cupcake shop. It was nearby (like 2 minutes away), a casual work environment and, hello, they make cupcakes!! The job was also part-time…well, part time in terms of hours, but it would still swallow up most of the week (9-330pm M-F). The only drawback…it paid like crap. Like a buck or two more an hour than I made as an intern about 7 years ago. Ugh, I wasn’t happy with the pay to say the least, especially living in CA where everything is so damn expensive. But since nothing else was coming along after applying to something like 100 or so different jobs, and I thought I would kinda like it, I accepted the position.

Flash forward to about 1 hour and 45 minutes after I accepted the cupcake job. I receive a call from a job I interviewed for back in December. They called and offered me a full time marketing and communications job for about what I was making at my job in CO – and nearly twice the amount of the cupcake job plus more hours and benefits. So, thinking solely of the money and the fact that I like to eat, I withdrew my acceptance of the cupcake job and here I sit at my 40 hour a week job that’s 30+ minutes away, only has casual dress on Fridays and, needless to say, they don’t make cupcakes.

Aaaannd…here I am, again, certain that I made the wrong decision. My heart wanted the cupcake job, but my brain and my wallet made me accept the other. UGH! Why do I always do this?! So, now I’m somewhat miserable. This week alone I drove by 2 major filming operations on the street in Burbank on my way to work. I couldn’t help but see the symbolism in driving far away from the true thing I want to do with my life to go to work. Not like I wouldn’t have drove by them if I was going to the cupcake job, but at least I could have drowned my sorrows in some butter cream. [Insert stuff here about current job that I'm not supposed to talk about on the internet because Evan doesn't want me to get fired] And it’s nobody’s fault by my own. One day I’ll get it right…I hope. But for now there are only a handful of major decisions that I know were right…


• Deciding it was time to wear a bra after my sister told me I needed one

• Quitting soccer after 10 years to focus on drama and choir in high school

• Deciding to live in the dorms my first year in college and meeting my best friend, Marisa

• Marrying Evan

• Choosing Disney World for our honeymoon – seriously, THE BEST vacation ever!

• Witnessing my niece being born. (Technically this decision was made for me, but hey, I didn’t go screaming out of the room when they ripped my her from my sister’s abdomen)

Hopefully, one day I can add moving to California to this list, but right now that’s still up in the air… Dang this was a long post. I should add a picture of something…