“Whaddya want?” he asked.
Blood rushed to my face. An hour and a half earlier, I had joined the back of a queue that had snaked around a downtown New York block.
We had shuffled forward, stopped for about 30 seconds, and shuffled forward again, inching closer and closer to one of the marvels of the modern world — freshly-baked bagels.
With each shuffle, I got nearer to the deli’s doughy delights. And now, it was my turn.
“Whaddya want?” Bagelman asked again. I looked up at the onion, poppy, sesame, pumpernickel, cinnamon-raisin, and kettle-boiled baked bagels.
Which one should I choose? And what would I have on it: lox, smoked mackerel, salmon, egg? Or one of the never-ending cream cheese flavours, blueberry, berry almond, sun-dried tomato, walnut-raisin, maple bacon, or jalapeño or a combo thereof?
I panicked. What if I made the wrong choice?
The people in front of me knew the drill. When they got to the front, they made their choice and walked out to bite into the shiny crust and soft centre of their bagel.
It was a well-oiled, efficient bagel line…until I reached the front.
“Whaddya want?” Bagelman asked again.
I did what I do in all matters of decision-making. I deferred.
“What do you recommend?” I asked.
“Have! Whatever! You! Want!” he grunted.
I took a deep breath and pointed at a random bagel. “That one.”
Bagelman sighed.
That’s what happens whenever I have to make a decision: blood rushes to my face, and I’m overcome by paralysing anxiety.
Being afraid to decide is not really about bagels. It’s about the fear that whatever I choose, the other option would have been better. That I’ll make the wrong call and spend the rest of my life knowing it.
Turns out, there’s even a name for this: Decidophobia, a term coined by Professor Walter Kaufmann, who defined it as “the dread of making fateful decisions”.
When I left school, I couldn’t decide what to study, so I stood in the shortest line on registration day.
Thank goodness, there were lots of people signing up for accounting that day, but I sometimes wonder how my life would have turned out if I’d stood in a different line.
I also fear making small decisions: which route to take to work, what shirt to wear, should I have a latte, a flat white, or a cappuccino, a single shot or a double? Skim, oat or almond milk?
I don’t make decisions, I let decisions make me. I also torture myself with the imagined outcomes of the decisions I didn’t make.
Life in the age of “free choice” is hell for people who fear decisions. Deciding what to watch on Netflix is a nightmare.
Two shows catch my eye. Ten minutes after umming and ahhing, I settle on one. Five minutes later, I think I made the wrong choice, and switch to the other show.
Ten minutes later, I’m back to the original show. Five minutes after that, I’m watching something else entirely. And at the end of the night, I haven’t actually watched anything.
If you were me, what would you do about the fact that you can’t make decisions?
There I go again, trying to delegate that responsibility of making a decision to someone else. Anyone. Even Bagelman, as long as it’s not myself.
With memories of my bagel humiliation still fresh, I realised that my indecision had seen many opportunities slip through my fingers.
I decided (which is not something I can say very often) to do something about it, so I went to the place where I always go when I’m seeking wisdom: TED Talks.
That’s where I found Mary Steffel, a marketing professor who studies the science of decision making.
As I was about to press play, my phone buzzed with an alert that the opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup between Bafana Bafana and Mexico was about to start.
Bafana Bafana or TED Talks? What would you do?
I ummed and ahhed but eventually made a decision.
Steffel made me realise that not deciding is a decision – and it’s the worst decision you can make. Because if you don’t choose, life chooses for you: a stale bagel, a job you hate, the wrong city.
The other thing she made me realise is not to worry about making bad decisions.
Once you accept that no decision is ever perfect and that you’re more resilient than you think, making decisions is much less threatening.
The imagined alternative decision – the road not taken, the bagel not eaten – is not better; it only seems better.
The difference is that the choices you didn’t make didn’t have a chance to disappoint you. Your actual choice did, but that’s not a reflection on your choice. That’s just life being life.
Steffel’s talk was like the pumpernickel-blueberry-cream-cheese-shmeared New York black-seed bagel I randomly chose, wholesome, and it gave me lots to chew on.
Watching her was one of the best decisions I ever made (and the fact that it spared me from Bafana Bafana’s embarrassing performance was just a bonus).