I was driving one afternoon and found myself thinking about decisions.
We make them constantly. Small ones every few minutes, big ones a few times a year, and every one of them shapes our lives, whether we notice or not. And as I watched my own mind that afternoon, looking down on it as if from above, I noticed something so simple it almost made me laugh. Nearly every decision I'd ever made came from one of two places.
Love, or fear.
How do you make decisions from love, not fear?
You make decisions from love by first catching the fear decisions, which often pose as practicality. Before a choice, ask yourself: is this really practical, or am I afraid? Then notice how your body answers. A love decision moves you toward what you want and who you are. A fear decision protects you from a risk that often isn't there.
Neither kind of decision is always obvious. That's what makes this worth practising.
Why are fear decisions so hard to spot?
Because they almost never call themselves fear.
Sometimes, of course, we know exactly what we're doing. We're choosing to play small, to avoid risk, to protect ourselves from being hurt, and we're aware of it. But far more often, fear comes dressed as something respectable. It calls itself being sensible. Being realistic. Being responsible. Being practical.
I won't apply for that role, it's not the right time. I'll stay in this relationship, it's complicated to leave. I won't start the business yet, the market's uncertain. I'll wait until the children are older, until the money's better, until I'm more experienced. Each one sounds reasonable. Some of them genuinely are. But many are fear with its best clothes on.
Here's a simple test. A practical decision made from genuine clarity usually feels calm. You weigh things up, you choose, and you move on without much residue. A fear decision dressed as practicality usually leaves a trace behind: a small sinking feeling, a sense of relief that isn't quite happiness, a quiet voice asking whether you've just talked yourself out of something important. That trace is worth listening to. It's often the part of you that knows what you really wanted.
And very often, what we really want feels so big and so out of reach that we never even let ourselves reach for it. We choose what seems practical instead, and tell ourselves that's maturity.
What does fear cost when it keeps deciding for you?
Quietly, a great deal.
Think of a door you keep almost opening. Every time you walk away, the door doesn't just stay shut. The hinges rust a little more. The real cost isn't the one room you never entered. It's that, year by year, you start to believe the door was never meant to open for you. Wait long enough and you stop reaching for the handle at all.
That's what a long run of fear decisions does. Each one seems small. Together they narrow a life. And the saddest part is that people often don't feel the loss as fear. They feel it as a kind of flatness, a sense that life is fine but somehow smaller than it was supposed to be. If that's familiar, it's closely tied to fear of failure and to the reasons we procrastinate on the things we most want.
What makes a decision a love decision?
It brings you closer to your heart's desire, and to who you really are.
Love decisions tend to feel different in the body. They carry energy rather than relief. They may still come with nerves, because anything that matters comes with nerves. But underneath the nerves there's a sense of alignment, of rightness, of moving toward something rather than away from something.
They support growth. They stretch your comfort zone. They ask you to become more of who you really are, which, as I've said for years, is less about becoming and more about unbecoming. To get what you truly want, you don't need to build a new self. You need to let go of who you aren't, so the life around you can reflect who you always were. It's an inside-out game. It always has been. That's what it means to unbecome.
Love decisions also tend to ripple outward in a way fear decisions don't. When you choose from love, the people around you often feel it. There's more openness in the room, more energy, more permission for them to choose from love too. A fear decision protects one person, briefly. A love decision tends to open doors for several.
How can I tell which one I'm choosing right now?
Here's a practice for the next decision you're facing, big or small. It takes about three minutes.
Write down the option you're leaning toward. Then ask yourself, plainly: is this really practical, or am I afraid?
Don't answer with your head. Close your eyes and imagine you've already made the decision. It's done. Notice what your body does. Is there relief, followed by a small sinking? A sense of having got away with something, but also of having shrunk a little? That's usually fear.
Now imagine choosing the other option, the one you've been calling impractical. Notice again. Is there a flutter of nerves, but also something that feels like breath, like space, like aliveness? That's usually love.
You don't have to act on what you find. You may still choose the practical option, and sometimes that's the right thing to do. But at least you'll be choosing with your eyes open, rather than letting fear make the decision while pretending to be common sense.
Does choosing love mean being reckless?
Not at all.
Love decisions can be careful. You can plan them thoroughly, weigh every risk, prepare for every setback. What makes a decision love-based isn't how brave it looks from outside. It's where it comes from inside. A person choosing from love can move slowly and wisely. A person choosing from fear can rush into something to escape a feeling. Recklessness is often fear in a hurry.
And the more often you choose from love, the easier it gets. Not because you become fearless, but because the old fears lose their authority. They still speak up. They just stop getting the final vote.
That shift usually doesn't come from forcing yourself to be brave. It comes from removing the old charge behind the fear, so that what used to feel like danger starts to feel like what it is: an ordinary risk, worth taking or not, on its merits.
On our stories page, Erin Kurt wrote: "My business literally tripled within 6 months." I'm not quoting that as a promise. I'm quoting it because it's the kind of thing that can happen when someone stops letting fear make their decisions, and lets something truer lead.
Where do I begin?
With the one who's choosing.
Fear decisions come from a version of you that learned, a long time ago, that the world wasn't safe. Love decisions come from the one underneath, who never lost touch with what it wanted. I made a free masterclass to help you meet that part of yourself, called Who Am I?
Next time you catch yourself about to make a practical decision, pause for one breath. Ask the question. And choose, knowing which voice is speaking.
Robert Simic, guiding the remembering.