Student Question: Master Chi, when facing the many choices along life’s path, how does one make a decision they won’t regret?
In elementary school, agonizing over which flavor snack to choose. In middle school, torn between devoting everything to competitions for a guaranteed university recommendation, or studying the curriculum to prepare for the upcoming high school entrance exam. After the entrance exam, torn between attending the experimental class at a nearby high school or boarding at a top provincial high school farther from home. At the start of high school, torn between joining the school’s competition track or working through the standard curriculum step by step. In the second semester of high school, torn between the humanities and sciences tracks. In the second year of high school, torn about whether to confess feelings to someone I liked. After graduating from university, torn about what kind of career to pursue.
Is life just one endless state of anguish? The path you chose, you must walk to completion even on your knees — but when you reach a crossroads, how can you make a decision that is both rational and confident?
Master Chi’s Response:
When a person must make a decision, it involves two dimensions: circumstances and people.
Let’s start with circumstances. Any situation has its benefits and its drawbacks. When there are only benefits and no downsides — or only harm and no good — the decision naturally becomes clear.
The real difficulty lies in situations where benefit and harm coexist, where fortune and misfortune are intertwined. As Laozi said: “Misfortune is where fortune takes root; fortune is where misfortune lies in wait.” Yet seeking benefit and avoiding harm is human instinct.
If your aim in taking action is to gain benefit and advantage, then choose whichever option offers the greater benefit.
If your aim is to avoid harm, then of two evils, choose the lesser.
This is why decisions require repeated weighing.
Second, each person’s depth of understanding differs, and everyone has their own preferences in judging a situation. This means that even when facing the same circumstances, different people will reach different conclusions. You must take a comprehensive view of all the information at hand and weigh it against the outcome you anticipate.
Third, when making a choice, sometimes you can actively step in and decide. Other times, the wisest move is to let things unfold naturally without intervention.
Fourth, reasoning through the situation alone is already no easy task — and when you must also factor in the human element, it becomes harder still.
There are three reasons why making decisions is so difficult:
The first: Insufficient information. You see only part of the picture — one leaf blocking your view of the entire forest.
The second: You cannot clearly distinguish benefit from harm. Many people are blinded by greed.
The third: You cannot tell the major from the minor, the root from the branches — grabbing the sesame seeds while dropping the watermelon.
Decisions are difficult, yet they carry immense weight. In the early stages before committing, gather collective wisdom — seek out the opinions of others. Once you have a preliminary plan, consult with those closest to you. But at the moment of final decision, only you can make the call.
This is like when someone comes to me for a consultation. I lay out every strategy and plan before them. But to produce the best results, they must ultimately make their own decision. A plan with no decision behind it is no plan at all.
When making decisions, we commonly encounter three problems:
The first: indecision.
The second: misjudgment.
The third: missing the moment.
Rash decisions are not necessarily easier to live with than drawn-out ones. Excessive hesitation — staying frozen even after you’ve already thought things through — may appear cautious, but it hides real danger. As Jack Ma once put it: “At night you imagine a thousand paths forward; come morning, you walk the same road you always have.”
When you must act and fail to, chaos follows. When you do make a choice, there will inevitably be both benefits and costs — no decision comes with only upside. If a misjudgment was your own, accept the consequences and correct course. As the saying goes: it is never too late to mend the fold after the sheep are lost.
What is most to be avoided is compounding one error upon another — refusing to face reality. Both gain and loss have their preconditions. And when it comes to choices, what matters most is timing. Miss the right moment, and even a sound judgment will often fail to yield the expected result.
Conversely, if you seize the opportunity well, even if the initial decision was somewhat flawed, there remains a chance to adjust, correct, and return to the right path.
To make a good decision, the key lies in clarifying your direction, grasping the broad strokes, and seizing the moment.