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By Root 597 0

to be happy with that sandwich. Once I saw that the turkey was a fine choice, it strengthened the emotional muscle that I can make adequate decisions. I realize this sounds ridiculous, but it really helped me a lot. It’s rare that you’ll have to make that “Lady or the Tiger” door choice. Most decisions we make will result in outcomes that are only infinitesimally different from one another in terms of our enjoyment of them. My dad has the old tough-guy philosophy of “make a decision and don’t look back,” which can be caramelized with my maternal grandfather Jim Facente’s gentle addendum, “Never live with regret.”

CHARACTERCIZE

What are some decisions you’ve been recently struggling with?

What are the pros and cons of both sides?

YOUR DEFAULT WORD

This might make the more cynical sarcastonauts fire at me with everything they’ve got. It’s a little stunty. I like it, though, because one of the reasons we may not make good (or any) choices on occasion is because we don’t have an instantaneous guide to enlighten us in the face of “What should I do now?” One way I’ve gotten around my indecision is by relying on a default word that I commit to each New Year. This is a word that I want to define me for the year. I do it annually because the Julian calendar is a convenient structure. I decide at the start of the year what I want the theme of that year to be. That way, whenever I get stuck in a situation where I don’t know what to do or decide, I think of that word and it almost always makes one option clearer. The word can be a tangible thing like “fitness” or a concept like “superlative.” In the case of the former, when trying to figure out if you should have that cupcake for breakfast, your default word might convince you to seek another option. In the case of the latter, if you’ve worked for eight hours on a project that’s due tomorrow and you’re ready to give up because “it’s good enough,” then “superlative” might impel you to put in that little extra bit of work to make it better because your default mental setting is “of the highest quality.” Or such a fancy word might make you suddenly don a top hat and perform ribbon gymnastics, but hopefully not. Your word can literally be ANYTHING you want it to be, and you don’t have to tell anyone and embarrass yourself, like I just did.

CHARACTERCIZE

Write down five words that might be constructive default words.

Pick one that gibes the most with where you want to go and write it under your name on your Character Page.

Remember it in times of struggle.

DECISIONS AND CHOICES ARE NOT TRYING TO MURDER YOU

Your Nerdy brain will naturally want to inspect and assess every option available to you and eventually the crushing weight of this pressure will most likely suffocate you into giving up and proclaiming, “Well, FUUUUUUUUCK [insert thing]!” Choices should be a good thing, as I will point out later in the “Confidence Theory” section. Choosing one thing usually doesn’t mean killing all of the other options forever. Oftentimes, you can always go back and change your mind if you want. If not, and you realize the decision did not pan out the way you had hoped, you now have a lesson for future decisions. The point is, own your decisions. It’s not even a mistake: Given all of the information you had, you made the best decision you could. I do this fun bullshitty thing that makes me feel better if I really screwed the donkey in the face with a poor decision. Here’s yet another great example! Many of you already know that I’m a huge Doctor Who fan. Seriously, I don’t fucking shut up about it. In April of 2011, the BBC asked me to moderate a panel with the cast and showrunner Steven Moffat in New York to celebrate the first two episodes of the sixth series of the show. IT. WAS. INCREDIBLE. At the after-party, I found myself in a conversation about British comedy with Mr. Moffat when I realized that I had decided earlier to do a drop-in set at a stand-up show at the UCB. I actually pulled away from a guy whose work I ADORE by saying, “You know what? I gotta