Decisions. Decisions.

There is a transition that occurs whenever a choice is in the process of being made where theoretically unlimited options are slowly whittled down until only the one that is ultimately chosen is identified. Sometimes these choices are eliminated in more of a time-phased process that spans across years, months, or days while others might be split second decisions. I could theoretically have anything I wanted for lunch today but my geographical location, my preferred tastes, my budget, what I had yesterday or am planning to have for dinner tonight all might factor in this process and even if those factors are in consideration, it might be simply the reminder that leftover chicken fried rice was available which became my choice today without necessarily even considering those other criteria.

My son has struggled making decisions basically all of his life. If he had been home today and I had asked him about lunch, I can almost guarantee you that he would have claimed he had no preference and was more interested in hearing what I wanted. He has developed a fairly adept skill of deflection for making decisions using this approach but he has a decision coming up that he cannot deflect: where to attend college next year. This decision started out with the multitude of options that expand almost daily with the arrival of the mail. Colleges and universities that he has never even heard of leverage his participation in standardized testing to collect a pool of what are in essence cold call names to see if perhaps one of those mailings will stimulate enough interest to move the relationship forward. One recent college even went as far as telling him he was accepted despite not having formally applied but they would gladly take him if he was interested.

It turns out that he he didn’t take them up on the offer since he had already applied to all the schools that he did have an interest in possibly attending: Brown, Duke, Wake Forest, UNC-Chapel Hill, and NC State. The second phase of this process ended up eliminating Brown and Duke as he was not accepted into them. Over the past several weeks it has narrowed to Wake and UNC-CH to actually visit before one will emerge as his college of choice. He toured Wake Forest last weekend and will tour UNC this one coming up to assist in his decision; however, I should fully disclose that there are some forces at play in Wake’s favor that may end up influencing the outcome: his maternal grandfather taught at Wake, both his Mom and I are Wake graduates, his older sister is currently attending Wake, and even the dog has started sporting his Wake Forest collar once this final stage of the process began.

Despite the apparent stacked deck, I do really want him to select the best school for him. It may very well end up being Wake but I’d like to know that he came to that decision on his own rather than allowing the deflection bias implied by those surrounding him to make the decision for him. This is not as simple as grabbing the chicken fried rice out of the fridge because its already there for my lunch today and nor should it be. I do appreciate that soon I won’t be at this same juncture in the process and we will have the final answer to the choice that is ultimately made. That is the reason I’m writing about this today. I want to record what it was like just before knowing the answer because once that bell is finally rung, there won’t be a way to be here ever again.