The Fear of Better Options

I‘m Increasingly finding people at the crossroads. It’s probably because it’s where I now live. Right by me is Victoria Coach Station, with 22 million arrivals and departures per year. Yet the city — your city too — is filled with people who are resolutely indecisive.

But it’s not your fault. You don’t need to have Hamlet’s disposition of introspective indecisiveness. Combating the crossroads is to take arms against a sea of troubles that are out of our control. We live in a world of overwhelming and manipulative choice architecture, designed to keep us scrolling, swiping, and buying through endless options of toothpaste, schools, vacations, and cars all the way to multi-hyphenated portfolio careers and potential partners. I remember my first visit to the US as an undergrad visiting Harvard and being overwhelmed by variations on a theme in the merch store. Perhaps ignorance is bliss! Fast forward to 2025, and this has only escalated. It’s not just FOMO (the fear of missing out), but more precisely FOBO (the fear of better options). This isn’t freedom: it’s a carefully constructed maze.

Lack of resilience — that old catch-22 — leads us to prize possibility over the risk of disappointment. Forgetting that a bird in the hand is worth two in the city. But we’ve bought into the lie of “optionality,” as outlined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, that the most valuable position to be in is the one that keeps the most future options open. It’s about avoiding commitment to gain an advantage.

It’s the classic ruminating thought that entraps us from making a decision. But keeping your options open can’t be open-ended. Sooner or later you need to quit the procrastinating. James writes in the New Testament that the “double-minded” person is “unstable in all they do.” The danger isn’t just in taking the wrong path — it’s not taking one at all.

The finality of a decision is what can make us happy. As opposed to, say, keeping the door open to an ex out of civility or whatever other excuse, rather than the clean break of an excruciating but clear end to a relationship. The so-called “advantage” of keeping your options open is beguilingly elusive. There’s the illusion that every path not taken represents a potential better life, making the current track a constant source of low-grade disappointment. We live in our own fantasy “what ifs” of history — but in the future — imagining ourselves sliding doors.  Keeping our options open is making us miserable. People are overwhelmed with the crossroads, flowcharts, and thoughts of burning bridges.

Daniel Gilbert has written in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and more popularly in Stumbling on Happiness. His thesis is simple: that people are less happy with decisions they can reverse. When a decision is final, our psychological immune system kicks in and we work to rationalize and enjoy the choice we’ve made:

The psychological immune system works best when we are totally stuck, when we are trapped. This is the difference between dating and marriage. You go out on a date with a guy, and he picks his nose; you don’t go out on another date. You’re married to a guy and he picks his nose? He has a heart of gold. Don’t touch the fruitcake! You find a way to be happy with what’s happened.

The Latin for “decide” is decidere, meaning “to cut off.” A choice that truly is worth it can help us to outrageously, blissfully cut off the other options. The gospel isn’t one more road to choose from. The inclusivity of Jesus’ call to all is matched by the exclusivity of slicing off all other options.

‘Twas ever thus. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God tells his people:

Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.

This is the rest your soul craves. Here we see the guidance of the ancient paths of scripture and the work of the Holy Spirit in revealing not only the next step at a crossroads, but the one who holds your future. The punchline, however, to this verse is “But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.” Like a toddler refusing medicine, our stubborn resistance to rest and what’s best for us. But this model shows us a model: to assess our situation, engage with God, inquire, to step out in faith and in so doing find freedom.

Thankfully, the Bible doesn’t just teach us a method. There’s a messiah for the countless times we’ve refused the guidance — and more importantly — the relationship that was always the point of the journey. Our decisions can be fickle, but there’s no denying the choice that Jesus made. Luke writes that Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem on the road to the cross. It’s the arrival of a rescuer who finds us, lost in analysis paralysis at the intersection of our lives. The finality of the cross, and Jesus’ resolute commitment to us is what creates the conditions for real, settled, lasting joy and peace.