I know that everyone has this experience many times in their lives.  It's the "maybe" thought, sometimes on little things, often on major things, but always with hindsight Monday morning quarterbacking.  For the little maybes, I could have picked a different bus, a different seat, a different subway transfer, met someone in a different circumstance. It's the day to day questions that are minor so you just take what happened and move along.  It's the Missed Connections on Craigslist.

For the more serious side, it's about what if I had chosen another, more lucrative career, what if I hadn't negotiated a deal on this apartment and paid another broker fee, what if I hadn't taken a giant leap of faith when I traded a permanent position for a temporary one that luckily turned permanent. Who would I be and where would I be if I had chosen differently?  I think we all contemplate these issues, consciously or subconsciously, and it does affect our daily life, and definitely emphasizes the effects of our major decisions in particular.

I try not to be paralyzed by the maybes, particularly since there have been more of them in the past five years than I ever imagined. Some days and weeks are better than others in terms of how heavily it can weigh on my mind, but I have a core of faith that while my decisions haven't always been the best, I've made the best out of my decisions in most ways.  I've thought about this a lot lately in terms of career path, relationships, what I've achieved in my life, and most of all, planning for the future.

The rub is that I'm tired of certain decisions being made for me in both my personal and work life, and also for allowing that to occur.  Some people think they're doing me a favor by drawing my path as they see it should be in their eyes.  Sometimes it's a way of asserting their own lack of control over other situations by controlling my choices.  Sometimes it's malicious as they try to sabotage the work where I have made my reputation. And sometimes I let them, more often now than ten or even five years ago, through sheer exhaustion of facing maybes that I should have owned and at least weighed in on the outcome. More and more I have ceded what should be my power on decisions that affect me to fate or outside factors instead of asserting myself.

I'm not saying I'm suddenly going to go all girl power and swing 180 degrees trying to take control over every little thing in my life.  Not only do I not have the energy for that, but that can be equally, if not more damaging, to your reputation and achievements. You don't want to be known as the aggressive bitch that can't play well with others and is so stubborn that no outside input is allowed or acknowledged.

I suppose I'm thinking about this more because as I've grown older, I react less on instinct and more on experience.  Normally people mellow as they age, so it's not unexpected that I would look at my life as a continuum instead of narrowing in on the current dilemma to the exclusion of other factors and consequences. But I'm wondering if I've let too much happen without my input, and how to improve that without turning it into a power struggle, both at work and in my personal life.  It's a hard skill to manage, and I've never perfected it.

This "maybe" is an important one. I need to find a better balance and make sure I'm not just background noise in events that matter to me. I deserve the right to speak up for myself whether it will make a difference or not, or on the other side, when I need to challenge the fact that I'm being taken advantage of.  I've let others override or hurt me in the past, and have tried to address it, but it's time to focus on this again. I've always tried to pick and choose my battles, but I think it's time to revitalize what's worth fighting for.  Someday I might get that delicate balance right.