Years ago, when I was still a teenager, my father taught me a method of evaluating options when making difficult value decisions. These types of decisions were mostly about which school to attend, career path, job positions, and major purchases (home, car, home improvement, etc.). This method was meant for objective decisions, not emotional ones. Difficult decisions are difficult because of the various criteria involved. Emotional decisions are not part of this equation, so please do not use this post when deciding whom to marry, because I have been divorced twice; so you’ve been warned. Any complex decision entails 5-10 separate criteria, items of consideration that are going to be difficult for each option. The decision-making process is complex because each option is going to hold to each of those criteria differently. If one of your options is overwhelmingly favorable across the board, then it really is not a difficult decision, it is a slam-dunk, a no-brainer. Most
I remember how powerless I felt as an undergraduate college student while studying engineering. My future, my independence, my life, was balancing on a single event, graduation. Completing my studies had always seemed like a moving target. See my earlier post ( Three Men and a Truck - My 30 year journey ) about my trials and tribulations involved with transferring from U of M - Ann Arbor to U of M - Dearborn . In that sordid process, there were several courses that didn't transfer towards my engineering requirements. I ended up taking an additional semester of coursework to finish my degree. During my senior audit, I was told that I was three credits short on my humanities requirement. I just couldn't believe it. During the prior semester, I had taken debate which was categorized as humanities, or so I thought. The department had recently reclassified the course. I had used an older bulletin when originally choosing the class. After my final semester, I