When I Cannot See What Comes Next, I Come Back to the Decision in Front of Me

I spent nearly three decades in Alberta real estate and business. Money, deadlines, other people, and consequences were usually involved. I rarely had every piece of information I wanted, and I still had to decide.

I learned the same thing in a much more personal way after my near-death experience. I knew very quickly that I was not the same person I had been before September 19, 2010. I had no idea what that would eventually mean for my work, my marriage, my beliefs, or the rest of my life.

Some answers did not exist yet. Thinking harder could not make them arrive early.

That has become an important distinction for me. Sometimes information is missing. Sometimes enough information is already there and I do not like where it points. Sometimes I am trying to solve five future decisions before I have dealt with the one that exists today.

I make better decisions when I separate those problems.

The Future Gets Bigger Than the Decision

A difficult decision can grow very quickly when I start solving consequences that have not happened yet.

A serious conversation with a partner becomes questions about where someone might live, what it would cost, how the family would react, and what life might look like years from now. A difficult month at work becomes a new career, a move, and a completely different financial future.

Some of those questions may eventually matter. They do not all belong to the same moment.

If the problem is that the business numbers are unclear, getting accurate numbers may be the next useful move. If a relationship has been strained for months, the decision may be whether to say clearly how serious it has become. If work is taking more than it is giving, looking at real alternatives can come before deciding whether to leave.

Getting one missing fact or having one necessary conversation does not solve the whole problem. It gives me something new to work with.

That is why I am careful with the sentence “I have no idea what to do.”

Sometimes it is true. Other times I know the next useful move and have no idea what happens after it.

Start With What Has Actually Happened

When information is missing, it is easy to fill the gap with fear or hope.

A short message becomes proof that someone is angry. One bad month becomes proof that a business is failing. A difficult meeting becomes evidence that a career is over. A good conversation becomes proof that a problem has disappeared.

Any of those predictions could turn out to be right. They are still predictions at the moment the decision has to be made.

I find it useful to put the situation into plain sentences. I want to know what actually happened, what was said or done, what has happened more than once, and which information I can verify.

“The payment is late” tells me something different from “this business is going to fail.” Five versions of the same unresolved argument carry more information than one bad evening. Dreading work for six months is a fact worth taking seriously even though it does not tell me which job should come next.

Facts do not make the decision for me. They tell me what I am actually deciding from.

Everything else can then be sorted more carefully: assumptions, fears, hopes, other people’s opinions, and questions nobody can answer yet.

Pressure Makes Uncertainty Harder to Sort

Researchers have spent decades trying to understand why not knowing can become so uncomfortable. One term they use is intolerance of uncertainty. Even they still debate exactly what belongs under that label and how it should be measured. A 2026 review found that those questions are still open, while decades of research have connected difficulty with uncertainty to worry and changes in how people think and behave.

Stress can make the whole thing harder to sort through.

In 2016, researchers pulled together 32 sets of laboratory results involving 1,829 people to look at how stress affected decisions when the outcome was uncertain. On average, stress nudged people a little more toward choices that were riskier, more focused on reward or more likely to work against them. The effect was not the same in every situation. Another review from the same year found that acute stress could also make it harder, on average, to hold information in mind and shift between different ways of thinking. The findings around stopping an automatic response were more mixed.

I do not read any of that as proof that a stressed person will make a bad decision. I read it as a reminder that the condition I am in while deciding can matter, especially when I have some control over the timing.

If a decision can safely wait until morning, I do not need to make it at two in the morning just because not knowing has become unbearable. A difficult conversation can look different after some of the immediate pressure has passed and I can hear what the other person is actually saying.

Some decisions really are time-sensitive. Health and safety issues, legal deadlines, serious financial consequences and other urgent problems can require action before I feel calm or ready.

What I try to separate is a real deadline from the feeling that uncertainty itself has become an emergency.

Bring the Decision Back to Today

The question I come back to is simple: what decision actually exists before the future begins?

If a fact is missing and available, the next move may be information. Open the account. Ask for the document. Make the appointment. Get the quote. Have the conversation.

Sometimes the next useful move is getting the real numbers in front of you. Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.

If another person has information I need, I would rather work from what they actually say than from the answer I have built for them in my head.

If the important facts are already available, the work changes. I have to decide what weight to give them and which consequences I am willing to accept.

There are also times when waiting is sensible. Medical results may be coming. A contract may not have arrived. A difficult conversation may deserve a night before the next one.

Waiting is useful when something specific is expected to change.

I learned this slowly after 2010. I could not decide what the rest of my life would become after my near-death experience. I could learn what had happened medically. I could read. I could pay attention to the changes I was experiencing. I could return to work and make decisions as new information arrived.

Each useful move gave me a little more to work with.

Waiting Has to Have a Job

Waiting deserves the same honesty as action.

There is a real difference between waiting because there is nothing useful to know yet and avoiding information because I am afraid of what it might tell me. A 2025 review of information avoidance makes that distinction too. The researchers found that people avoid information for all kinds of reasons, including what they expect the information to mean, whether they feel able to deal with it, and the pressure around the situation.

Waiting until Thursday because an accountant is sending the numbers has a job. Waiting to speak until everyone has calmed down may have a job. Taking a night before answering an important offer may have a job.

Refusing to open the bank account because I am frightened by the number is different. Nothing is actually being gained by the delay except a little more time before I have to face what is already there.

The research on putting off decisions is also much less tidy than the usual advice to “just take action.” In 2023, researchers pulled together studies of several ways people avoid or delay decisions, including leaving things as they are, doing nothing, handing the decision to someone else and putting it off. They did not find a simple pattern showing that acting immediately leads to less regret later.

I find that useful because waiting can be deliberate and sensible, while fast action can sometimes be its own way of escaping discomfort.

I look for the job the delay is doing: what information is expected, when it will arrive, and how it could genuinely change the decision in front of me.

If nothing new is expected, I have to consider whether I am really waiting for better information or waiting for the facts to become easier to accept.

Repeated Patterns Deserve More Weight

One event and a repeating pattern are different kinds of information.

A missed deadline can happen. A series of missed deadlines changes what I know about reliability. One argument can be one bad day. The same unresolved argument every month tells me something else. A difficult season at work may pass. Two years of feeling depleted deserves more weight than another promise that next month will be different.

Patterns do not make the decision for me. They change how much evidence I have.

It is possible to explain every event separately until the pattern disappears from view.

Other people’s needs also belong in serious decisions. Children, partners, business commitments, family responsibilities, and financial realities can all change what is possible and what is responsible.

If I keep describing the same problem, the repetition is worth noticing. It may not tell me exactly what to do, but it narrows which explanations still hold up.

Enough Clarity for the Decision in Front of Me

For me, clarity is having enough reliable understanding to make the decision that exists now.

Certainty would mean knowing how the choice will turn out. Most important decisions do not offer that.

I can have a careful conversation and still be surprised by the answer. I can leave a job for good reasons and discover that the next one has problems of its own. I can set a necessary boundary and still dislike the reaction. I can make a sound business decision and have the market change afterward.

A sound decision can still lead to an outcome I would not choose. The result depends on more than the decision itself.

When I cannot see what comes next, I come back to what has actually happened, what I am assuming, what information is missing, and what belongs to today.

Sometimes that leads to action. Sometimes it leads to one more question. Sometimes it leads to a deliberate wait.

The future may still be uncertain when I finish. I only need enough clarity for the decision I actually have.