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You have to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything.

What makes a good decision maker? I used to think I was a pretty great decision maker. I lived on the principle that if you always do what is right, then you will be happy and there will never be any problems. Of course we all do things that never made sense. Like hiding progress reports, ordering extra-extra ice coffee (every morning), or ordering Chinese food at 1 a.m. instead of studying for finals, but all that is for amateurs. I (if I do say so myself, am NOT an amateur…unless someone yells penis out loud in public) am talking about when you realize that the way you judged your relationships of passing notes in between classes, sneaking phone calls after 10:00p.m. and making out behind the snack stand at Friday night football games no longer works for your 40+ work week mixed in with your night grad school classes and that weekend night that should be a date night but you accidentally have a few friends over and pass out somewhere in between your 3rd or 7th long island.

Decisions are made easy by making the variables plain and simple right? If you love your girlfriend or boyfriend, stay with them. If you don’t, then chalk it up to a character building experience and hit the road jack. Wrong. That never works. So why keep using this useless strategy? We have this idea that because our relationship is not that simple so that MUST mean that it is so much more complicated (and more meaningful). We are all idiots, myself included. Problems arise, people are people, life happens, I get it. But what do we do with the problems, how to we “fix” the people and what if what happens in life is not what we want? Here’s what I have learned:

You step away.

No one ever discovered anything about themselves while trying to figure out someone else. Of course you learn something about yourself in almost every situation. But I am talking about a full mental change. Every single one of wants things to work, we try to push ideas like date nights, buying great outfits that cost more than our electric bill, and rationalize all text messages post midnight as, “you’re true feelings come out when you’re drunk”. All this, for what, to wait for the next weekend for it to happen all over again?

Last time I checked, I came into this world without some fool next to me and I am pretty sure I survived. Sometimes when we grow up, we grow stupid. We forget or don’t know what we want or what we stand for. Like I said before, to be a good decision maker, you have to make the right decisions. If you do the right thing, then you are a good person. If you are a good person, you are worth more than someone else’s bad character. In the end, wait for the person who writes you notes not text messages, callings you on their lunch break not at 2 a.m., and wants to kiss you when you get home from work instead of outside the cab. I guess, everything we need to know about relationships, we already learned on Saved By The Bell.

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What makes a good decision maker? I used to think I was a pretty great decision maker. I lived on the principle that if you always do what is right, then you will be happy and there will never be any problems. Of course we all do things that never made sense. Like hiding progress reports, ordering extra-extra ice coffee (every morning), or ordering Chinese food at 1 a.m. instead of studying for finals, but all that is for amateurs. I (if I do say so myself, am NOT an amateur…unless someone yells penis out loud in public) am talking about when you realize that the way you judged your relationships of passing notes in between classes, sneaking phone calls after 10:00p.m. and making out behind the snack stand at Friday night football games no longer works for your 40+ work week mixed in with your night grad school classes and that weekend night that should be a date night but you accidentally have a few friends over and pass out somewhere in between your 3rd or 7th long island.

Decisions are made easy by making the variables plain and simple right? If you love your girlfriend or boyfriend, stay with them. If you don’t, then chalk it up to a character building experience and hit the road jack. Wrong. That never works. So why keep using this useless strategy? We have this idea that because our relationship is not that simple so that MUST mean that it is so much more complicated (and more meaningful). We are all idiots, myself included. Problems arise, people are people, life happens, I get it. But what do we do with the problems, how to we “fix” the people and what if what happens in life is not what we want? Here’s what I have learned:

You step away.

No one ever discovered anything about themselves while trying to figure out someone else. Of course you learn something about yourself in almost every situation. But I am talking about a full mental change. Every single one of wants things to work, we try to push ideas like date nights, buying great outfits that cost more than our electric bill, and rationalize all text messages post midnight as, “you’re true feelings come out when you’re drunk”. All this, for what, to wait for the next weekend for it to happen all over again?

Last time I checked, I came into this world without some fool next to me and I am pretty sure I survived. Sometimes when we grow up, we grow stupid. We forget or don’t know what we want or what we stand for. Like I said before, to be a good decision maker, you have to make the right decisions. If you do the right thing, then you are a good person. If you are a good person, you are worth more than someone else’s bad character. In the end, wait for the person who writes you notes not text messages, callings you on their lunch break not at 2 a.m., and wants to kiss you when you get home from work instead of outside the cab. I guess, everything we need to know about relationships, we already learned on Saved By The Bell.

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