Page 20 Women in Higher education (www.wihe.com) / October 2014

I have been thinking a lot lately about some choices I’ve had to make in my personal life . After almost a

whole lifetime of being in school (K–12, undergradu-ate, graduate, PhD) I have learned to make sense of the world around me through research, questions and writ-ing . And although I am no longer in academia, I apply that approach to my life on a regular basis . So the past few weeks I have spent my time reading and writing in order to make sense of my options .

A few things I have learned …

You have to take care of yourselfOften choices become about the right thing to do, or

the thing that benefits most people . But we tend to forget about how choices affect us . Sometimes even the process can affect us .

Regularly I try to remind myself that I can choose to move forward or I can choose to be stagnant . Sometimes I win the argument, and sometimes I lose it .

Where did I pick up this language of choice? In a very unlikely place . A few months ago I started reading the book The 5 Love Languages (Northfield Publishing, 1995) by Gary Chapman . I was struck by how often the author used the vocabulary of choice when talking about two people who were in a long-term relationship .

The idea of choosing to be happy or choos-ing to be with someone or choosing to stay with someone to make it work resonated with me, and I carried it on to other things in my life .

Some days choosing me meant focusing on the work on my docket . Other days choosing me meant knitting and watching Scandal on my iPad . I made the decision to go find the things that made me happy .

How often do I choose to do something else when I should prioritize myself? How often are someone else’s priorities the default?

Think about the last time you consciously made a choice . It might be small or it might be a big deal . When was the last time you said, I want to do it this way, or bet-ter yet: I choose to do it this way?

It’s a processLately I’ve been more deliberate about my daily

routine . It’s almost like living in slow motion, paying close attention to what’s going on around me . Some-times this helps and sometimes it doesn’t . I’m still fine-tuning the process, and I remind myself it’s okay to take my time .

It’s easy to forget how many things we have choices over . Especially in a world where structural inequality is always playing against minorities and in favor of the white heterosexual male majority . Structural inequality can weigh us down and make us feel like there’s no way that we can get ahead .

THE EDITOR’S END NOTES

What Do You Mean, I Have To Choose?But there are still choices we can make every day . Some

of them have even been streamlined, where you make a choice once and it just keeps on happening . Others, we assume there’s no other way around it, when in fact you can make decisions .

Hard choices as just that: hardAs I was writing this article, I came across a TED

Talk by Dr . Ruth Chang from Rutgers University NJ titled “How to make hard choices .” Chang is a phi-losopher who studies hard choices and what goes into making them .

In her TED talk Dr . Chang shares with viewers that we think all hard choices are big choices, and that hard choices are hard because we’re stupid . In fact, she says, hard choices are hard precisely because there is

no better option . She explains that hard choices are often

on a par; they may be different, but they’re in the same neighborhood of value, like, say, if you’re weighing career choices or whether to get married or stay single .

Dr . Chang posits that when we think of hard choices as on a par (instead of think-ing of them as things with equal value that will reveal themselves to us when we do the math), we can put our very selves behind an option . This response, she says, is a rational response but supported by

reasons created by us . When we create reasons for our-selves, we become the people that we are .

Basically? We shouldn’t beat our heads against a wall trying to find a better choice . We should find our answers inside us . This insight was remark-ably soothing to my soul . It’s not that I can’t find the answers . It’s that maybe I’m looking for them some-where else .

Ultimately, Dr . Chang points out that hard choices are the choices behind which you put your agency . “Hard choices are precious opportunities to celebrate what is special about the human condition .”

Where am I now?Actually, I still have a long way to go . So I write and

I read and I engage in self-care practices, like going to dinner with friends or treating myself to a manicure on a weekday .

Give it a shot . Next time you have to do something, think: Am I choosing to do this? Or is someone forc-ing me to do this? How can I take care of myself in the process?

Till next time,LSF

to-read pile on night table. too many choices!