What Was Your Hardest Choice in Life?

[Sincerity]

What was the most difficult decision that you had to make in life? How do you feel about it now?

Let's bring some more genuineness to the forum with this thread. I'd love to hear your serious answers.

For me, it's breaking up with my first girlfriend after 2 years. We've lived together for 1,5 years and both grew a ton through the relationship. We love each other and had a good time together, but there have also been frustrations and arguments, often about the same things. I realized we're fundamentally unaligned in some important ways and it's time to let go and try something different. It's been very emotionally difficult, but I have faith in the decision.

What about you?

[XXXXXX]

1. Leaving 3 girlfriends (I lived with 2 of them, and with one of them we were planning to have kids within the next 2 years)

     --> Hurt so much but I have zero regrets about the breakups. Countless things I could have done better, relationships teaches you so much.

 

2. Quitting alcohol and junk food completely. (I also quit nicotine, caffeine, drugs, video games, porn and gambling, but alcohol and junk food was a harder choice because there is a social pressure to do those things, and quitting alcohol meant that my relationships with my friends and social life change.)

    --> I feel good about it, best decision in my life.

 

3. 5 years ago leaving the company I founded with a co-founder.

    --> Sometimes I think that it would be interesting to see what would have happened if I stayed, but I have never regretted it.

 

 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Deciding to sit by my Grandfathers side in hospice, until he passed on.

I was a moment away from leaving. I thought I couldn't face seeing that.

I leant over him, and whispered 'Bye, Papa' and he semi-rose up and said 'NO'.

So, I stayed and watched him pass. It took 3 hours.

I saw him come into a complete state of being as his brain shut down, his self left. I feel I witnessed a form of no-self at the moment of death; as the overlay of all his conditioning melted away as the brain switched off. His body was putting off so much energy. His last words were 'Beautiful girls' and he looked around like it was the first time he saw anything in his life. He repeated 'The light, the light' many times.

Pure being, everything else erased.

Horror & beauty all at once.

[Sincerity]

@XXXXXX @Natasha Tori Maru That’s powerful. Thanks for sharing guys.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

11 minutes ago, Sincerity said:

@XXXXXX @Natasha Tori Maru That’s powerful. Thanks for sharing guys.

Thank you for your topic - and expressing your choice. Those sorts of breakups are up there for me. The emotional turmoil is gut wrenching. Respect.

x

[Rishabh R]

Hardest decision of mine in life up until now was accepting the fact that my father needs to marry the second time after my mother passed away due to cancer. Initially I was shocked when I heard this from my father. But slowly I accepted it and I am glad that I cooperated with him since now my family life is better.

Also second most difficult decision was to pursue engineering in instead of pursuing general bachelor's and master's degree in biological sciences.Now I feel that I made the right decision as it improved the trajectory of my life. ( Good decisions don't come easily)

The third one - The decision to move on from a girl whom I was in one-sided infatuation in school. Was very tough. I used to close my room and cry for this girl but moving on was the ultimate game changer for me.

Edited 8 hours ago by Rishabh R

[Miguel1]

Great thread.

Hardest decision in my life in a bigger picture has got to be the decision of accepting the reality of humanity and how unconcious they really are. How hard it is to become more conscious, and how impossible this work can be for majority.

With this decision, majority of my dreams and identity died. This accepting has been happening the past 5 years and only perhaps since a year ago I have started to develop a new identity with new dreams based on my new accepted reality.

Fucking painful.

[Rishabh R]

@Miguel1 Agreed.The toughest decisions of our life carry the seed of our significant growth which improves our life trajectory.

Edited 8 hours ago by Rishabh R

[LastThursday]

The hardest decision I made was to be honest about a long term relationship I was in. My whole life was set up around being with this person and for the longest time I resisted facing up to the fact I no longer loved her. And then one day it happened, she asked me, and I said the words. She found a new partner, I found a new partner, but my boat had sailed, and I had to go and reinvent myself, find new friends and a new life, whilst she stayed ashore.

 

[LambdaDelta]

It's taking place right now. Metaphorically, it is to die, but also to live. I had to surrender being a victim to a perceptual malaise that makes me see everything as boring, unless the intensity of experience is literally at warzone meat-grinder levels (looking back, that's pretty much the main reason I got into hardcore spirituality in the first place, as nothing on this Earth was enough to make me feel alive). After a bunch of profound awakenings, despite their immense significance and beauty, it actually worsened my condition for a long time, as I now had a new reference frame for how crazy things could get, but was simply unable to see the same divinity in the mundane. It's still a major struggle, but I've resolved to work with what I got and make the most out of it instead of resigning myself to the impossibility of change and therefore a slow descent into addiction, depression, and unfulfillment, just waiting to serve out my term here (I also know with certainty that I'll live to 72, don't ask how). This entailed killing the self-deception that I don't need or want anything and don't care about wasting away my potential. The fear was twofold there: first the death of my old apathetic identity, as no matter how ugly it is it's still me, and it was at least capable of one final act of selflessness and courage — dying to make room for the greater good; and next is the sickening realization of just how much work lies ahead, which I already semi-consciously knew and desperately wanted to avoid, keeping me in paralysis for so long. But I'll do it nonetheless, if not for myself then for the world. Currently I'm in the process of methodically engineering a new identity based on powerful principles drawn from a variety of sources that will be able to go all the way, or at least till the next milestone. The deadline is set for end of this week, Feb. 1, with the weekend reserved for installing this new kernel into the innermost depths of my consciousness. 
So, in a sense, this is goodbye, I'll see you all on the other side.