When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It |
Yogi Berra, baseball legend and accidental philosopher, once gave his friend Joe Garagiola directions to his house in Montclair, New Jersey. "When you come to a fork in the road," he said, "take it." This wasn't Zen koaning—it turned out both roads actually led to the same place. But as a life metaphor, it's stuck around for decades, because most of us know exactly what it feels like to stand at that fork, rooted to the spot, watching traffic go by.
As a practicing psychiatrist and psychotherapist, I see this in my office all the time.
Recently, a patient—let's call her Dana—has spent the better part of six months deciding whether to ask her ex-boyfriend to move out of the apartment they still share. They broke up. He's still there. She knows what she wants to do. She just... hasn't done it. Every session, we revisit the fork. Every session, she stands there.
"What's stopping you?" I ask.
She has a dozen excellent reasons. He has nowhere to go. It'll be awkward. What if she's making a mistake? What if she regrets it? What if, what if, what if.
Meanwhile, he watches TV in the living room.
Indecision is underrated as a psychological symptom. We tend to focus on depression, anxiety, the dramatic stuff. But inertia—the quiet refusal to choose—deserves its own chapter. Herman Melville understood this. His short story Bartleby, the Scrivener features a law clerk who, when asked to do anything at all, responds with the immortal line: "I would prefer not to." Bartleby doesn't quit. He doesn't comply. He simply... prefers not to. He's infuriating. He's also a genius of passive resistance.
There's tremendous power in not deciding. Ask any two-year-old who's planted himself in the middle of a busy street. Plop! He just sits there, refusing to move. He doesn't need to do a thing. Everyone else has to work around him.
Dana's ex isn't doing anything wrong, technically. He pays his share of the rent. But his continued presence means Dana doesn't have to fully reckon with the breakup, doesn't have to feel the silence, doesn't have to be alone. The indecision is doing something for her, even as it drives her crazy.
Here's where it........