Lists, Lists

Whenever I find myself in the unpleasant position of having to make a big decision, the kind that determines major steps in my life, I make lists. I discovered this technique when I was 16 and at the first real crossroads in my life: determining which way to go in high school; the literary stream or the scientific stream.

My upbringing didn’t prepare me for either, really. I always thought that was because I never went to any summer camps largely because my parents couldn’t afford to send me to any, and also because they never bought into the idea in the first place. I am not sure that argument makes any sense now. I loved physics and biology equally as I loved Arabic and English. I hated math and chemistry as much as I resented geography. It was a tough call. So I made my first list.

It was a list of pros and cons for the two choices. Literary pros: good at Arabic and English, will get a high total. Literary cons: limited options of study. Scientific pros: more options of study open. Scientific cons: hate math, will get lower total. The trump card? I wanted to make my parents proud. Literary stream it was.

After I passed Tawjihi with flying colours, it was time to make another list. Again, I was extremely neutral about things. Do all Tawjihi graduates go through the same confusing greyness? Up to that point, I hadn’t given it much thought what I wanted to become or do for a living. Yes, there were certain ambitions if you will, like becoming a nurse or a vet, or a diplomatic attaché, but they weren’t solid enough to build a choice on. Plus, I’d already gone with the literary stream as per my first list.

Four years later, I had to decide again. I sat on a bench on a hot summer’s day, I still remember very clearly, took out a pen and a piece of paper and made three columns. Name of major, pros, cons. I made my choice based on the results of this comparison, then I stuck with it for three years. That list controlled the course of my life for the past three years, and you say words on paper are not powerful?

I made the fourth list to decide whether or not to remain in a relationship. Is that odd? I wrote pros and cons, projecting the current situation into the future, factoring in (rational)emotions and ambitions, career plans and family expectations. I calculated it all, and opted out. How is that odd?

It has been a long time since I made any lists. But as a true believer in the great practicality of this method of doing life, I always recommend it to others when they simply can’t make up their minds. It’s straightforward: unload your mind on a piece of paper and the thoughts that seemed to float about and crowd your brain will line up in an ink queue waiting for you to sort them out. It’s like magic.

Of course, there is a possibility that all of the decisions I made were wrong. It’s like a data processor really; the input you feed the machine determines the output you receive. If you key in crooked data, you’ll get the wrong outcome. Now take that and apply it to life from birth to death. Not so groovy, is it?

Maybe I keyed in the wrong data in that very first list I made– the variables were subjectively determined– maybe I could have had a high total if I’d gone scientific. And who’s to say that I wouldn’t have become a swell nurse, a true angel of mercy, undisgusted by strangers’ vomit and urine? And what if I didn’t leave that relationship? I’d have been married by now, a married nurse or computer engineer, probably unhappy and resentful — maybe even on the verge of completing a masterpiece of philosophical musings on the meaning of life as seen through the eyes of an unhappily married nurse. The book that would knock Zarathustra’s thus spoken gibberish out of print.

And then there’s all the other stuff I do without making lists. The list-free actions I call “manifestations of spontaneity.” They’re the random, everyday things that fill the gaps left by the list-determined actions, but are strangely influenced by them: like falling in love with the wrong guy and refusing to admit it, like adopting a hamster or a political opinion, like working with two absolutely clueless editors who are not worth a pile of my shit, or like cultivating a taste for pickles and refined music. The list of these things goes on and on ad infinitum, isn’t that ironic?

It is. But only if you make lists, too.