Should you become a parent? Should you change your career? Decisions such as these change the directions of our lives in irreversible ways. However, it is not just your life that’s changing, it is your self. When making decisions, while facing an unknowable future, we should bear in mind who we are now and who we want to become, writes L. A. Paul.
Imagine yourself in the following situation: you and your partner are trying to decide whether it’s time to start a family. In particular, you are trying to decide whether you’d like to have a baby. Your financial situation and physical health make the decision to become a parent largely up to what you choose—you have the necessary resources, so it’s about what you want your future lives to be like. This is a paradigmatic “big decision”: the stakes are high, and the choice is irreversible in the sense that, once you’ve had the child, you can’t undo its existence. Even if you give your child up for adoption, you’ve still become a biological parent.
There are many ways to approach a big decision like this, and, if you have any uncertainty about what you’d prefer, you’ll want to think carefully about what you value in order to make the best choice for yourself (and your partner).
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