I was recently asked for guidance by an amazing young person. She was at a fork in the road in her life and looking for clarity about the best way forward.
I hope the advice I gave her was helpful. I’ve edited it (to take out any specifics) and share it here just in case it might be helpful to anyone else who might happen to stumble across it.
In learning of your current predicament, there were five main aspects I thought I should address:
1. Your opinion – The only person whose opinion really matters is you. It is your life and you are the one who will fully face the consequences of your decisions. The principle that guides me is ‘If their eyes are shining, then you’re doing it right’. I believe that the best guide to your decisions is to choose the option that will make your eyes shine. I cannot tell you what that is, but in my opinion, that way of thinking will guide you to the best outcome.
2. Other people’s opinions – Other people will give you their advice and they have their agendas and worldviews for doing so. Some people’s advice will be better than others. Seek out the people who really know, such as those who fully understand what both options mean. By all means, listen to their advice and ask them many questions, but also think for yourself.
3. An economist’s opinion – Often people make a decision because they think how far they have already gone too far down a particular road. Economists would regard that as ‘sunk cost fallacy’; we should not take into account ‘sunk costs’ or the things that have already happened when we make our decisions. Instead, the more efficient way to make decisions is to only take into account the future costs and benefits from this point onwards.
4. My opinion – I didn’t want to give my opinion, because I like people to make their own decisions. However, one little insight that struck me was when you wrote about how you want to help other people. To me it seemed like that was what mattered most to you, whether you were aware of it or not. My opinion is that you should try to identify what matters most to you and to choose the path that helps you to achieve it.
5. A little secret – Although I teach Economics by trade, there is one field of study that I love even more than Economics. That is best summed up as ‘practical philosophy’. When I was your age my mind would keep me up late at night, whirring round and not stopping when I had big decisions to make. When I was 24 years old I did a course in ‘practical philosophy’ that was all about wisdom. The best thing I ever learned was that ‘the mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master’ and I learned to use techniques such as meditation, mindfulness, appreciating nature, reiki, yoga and yoga nidra to access the part of me that is above the mind. In my opinion, to live a really full life in all its richness, that is the key. When your mind can’t solve a problem, like the one you’re facing now, maybe it’s best to find the answer in a different part of your being. (I recommend searching for whatever part of us humans it is that makes our eyes shine!)
I hope there is something somewhere in what I’ve written that might be useful to you. Part of me is contemplating deleting points 2 to 5 because the only thing that really matters is point 1, so maybe you should read that bit again.
Whatever you decide, the most important thing is that you’ve got amazing precious jewels inside you to offer to the world. Life is all about uncovering those jewels and letting them shine. So after all that, it doesn’t really matter what you decide, what really matters is that you keep shining.
Be The Plus 
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