Identity crisis as a problem is a process that everyone who is experiencing it must have gone through or is still going through. I call it a process because most of the words associated with identity crisis reveal that they are not things that can come on you just in one night. They are things that happen gradually. You can’t wake one morning and start feeling intimidated by the people around you if nothing had been absent in you to allow for that intimidation. You don’t just see people and envy them right away. Envy is a feeling and a form of emotion that develops usually as a result of another process seen in other people. it is very obvious that most of the people experiencing identity crisis have something missing in them and some of those missing things are:

Improper Upbringing

The way a child is brought up will determine, to a great extent, the way that child will live his adulthood. Many adults today cannot express love to their children because nobody expressed love to them while growing up. The funny thing is that many people don’t even know what it is to be truly loved so it is not a usual for such people to express love to other people.

When children are not brought up in love filled atmosphere they will always have a yearning for that love and the truth is that they will always look for it anywhere they can get it. One of the primary responsibilities of parents in the present day society is to make sure that their children experience love. So many people want to act love by giving to their children and just making sure they get good education. That is a very good thing but young people grow faster with the seeds of the right words sown into their lives.

In any gathering of children or other young people you will always be able to tell the difference in the homes they all are coming from and it begins with how they relate with one another. One child or youth feels so confident and relates easily with other people and the other one feels so timid and does not want to relate with other people even when this child does not have any physical disability that may bring shame. In some homes there is no freedom because the parents do not want the children to get into trouble but unfortunately they get into worse trouble by not having freedom because they lose personal identity. As much as you do not want your young ones to get into physical trouble in the community, I absolutely think it is more important not to let them get into the psychological trouble of losing their personal identity because that has a long term effect which may come to bear on their success in life.

One of the ways you can help your young ones to grow better is to make sure you and your spouse have a cordial relationship. If for any reason you need to argue it is important to avoid doing it in the presence of your children because there are things that will remain with them from the sight of dad and mum exchanging bitter words or hurling insults at each other. When you also have a peaceful relationship they will always look forward to living a meaning life and respecting other people.

It is as a result of violence against women that some women think their main role in the home is just to keep the kitchen busy and keep the dinning table filled so that the man of the house can be filled. For this reason some women have been relegated in their minds to the position of slaves in their homes. They feel the work of the woman is to stay awake to satisfy the woman. These are all perception creating scenerios and we need to deliberately concentrate on the things we do because the young ones are watching.

Lack of affirmation

There are words that you must say to your children or young ones around you and when they do not hear such words they gradually begin to withdraw into their shells and ultimately into identity crisis.

Never assume a child or any other person knows that he or she is loved. You need to affirm the love. You and I know that your spouse knows he or she is loved but still wants to hear it regularly and when it does not come it looks as if there is a problem somewhere. People get into identity crisis when they do not hear words confirming the fact that they are loved. They do not want to think for the person who is supposed to express love and they do not want to assume they are loved.

One of the things that I have noticed is that many parents find it easy to scold young people or their children than to encourage them. Over and over again I have been in a situation where I get scolded for doing some seemingly insignificant things but when I do things that make me deserve a pat on my back nobody gives the pat. Everybody stands at a distance and watch until that moment of glory gradually folds away. When a child does not receive encouragement for doing something well, it is most likely that child will not want to continue. When a child gets scolded every time for doing something wrong the child begins to focus on the next chance of making a mistake rather than the next opportunity to do something great and be a better person.

Affirm your love to people around you to help some of them get out of identity crisis. Say what you mean and mean what you say. I have not said that people should not be scolded but it should be done wisely. It should not be done in such a way that the people now totally lose confidence in themselves and always look for whom to imitate since nobody believes in them. Too many people hear more abusive words than encouraging words. That is why they have lost confidence in what they thought was their strength. If people can begin to hear more encouraging words than abusive words there will be a big difference in their lives over a period of time.

Demoralizing experiences

When people start out on something new they often start out with a dose of seemingly inexhaustible energy but when things start turning in a direction opposite where they thing it should be headed, they get discouraged. This simply means that futile attempts at what one is doing can be demoralizing enough to push people off the right track. There are people started out on the right track but opted out when things where not working and they were beginning to get into trouble by trying to do what others are doing well instead of focusing on what they can do well.

For some others the demoralizing experience can be a public disgrace at one time or the other. Take for instance someone who is born with the natural ability to speak. If while starting a career as a public speaker he fails to carry the audience along and the audience begins to clap not as a sign of honour for what was said but as a way to say, “stop wasting our time and get out,” that kind of man may not think twice about public speaking again. He may now prefer to stay in the audience and listen instead of going to speak for fear of being disgraced a second time.

The same can happen to a singer who gets to the middle of a song on stage and mistakenly goes flat! Even if that person knows music is thee only way out for him or her, the experience for some people will be too grave to let them go back to the stage for any performance. Now it is glaring that the discovery of a man’s talents or gifting can lead to another trouble depending on who is in charge.

Don’t let your past failures frustrate you away from what you are doing if you know that is the right thing to do. Keep doing what you are good at, focus on it and take your eyes away from the previous setbacks you have had. Make victory your focus and get up each time you fall. There will be demoralizing circumstances but don’t ever stay demoralized.

Identity Crisis – Fola Daniel Adelesi

Identity crisis in my own words is simply a conflicting perception of your true personality that makes you think less of yourself and often seek approval from other people.

A lot of people do not have it easy relating with other people in their places of work or as students in their schools and sometimes they think the other people are the problem. Often times when we think someone else is the problem, we are the one who need to change. Stephen Covey would say, “the way you see the problem is the problem.”

More than half the people who walk the face of the earth do not truly know who they are because they are looking at someone else and they pattern their entire lives after that person. This is what necessitates the clarification between imitation and emulation. When you are emulating someone it simply means the person has some good attitudes that you can take after. It simply means that the person has set a positive standard and has become a success in the positive light so if you also want to succeed you can take some clues from that person. Nevertheless, you still have it in mind that there are certain things you cannot do exactly the way that person has done it because you may not be in exactly the same situation. Emulation is usually with a purpose and with the consciousness of your personality not being eroded despite the fact that you want someone else to be your role model.

When you begin to imitate people you often do not know why they do what they do but you always do it because they are doing it and before you know it your confidence would depend on what is approved by the society. With this, your personality would be eroded since you are trying to live like another person instead of being yourself and still learning somethings from other people.

Words that are associated with identity crisis and proofs of thinking less of yourself.

1.) Intimidation
2.) Insecurity
3.) Inferiority
4.) Low self esteem
5.) Arrogance
6.) Materialism
7.) Denial
8.) Deceit
9.) Hatred
10.) Envy
11.) Depression.

Signs of identity crisis

1.) You appreciate everything about others but nothing about yourself.
2.) You envy or hate others for being more successful or for having gone ahead of you.
3.) You find it difficult to relate with people who seem to be more successful or people who seem to have nearly all that you desire.
4.) You always want to make people focus on what you have, your little achievements, what you wear and not who you are.
5.) You never want to admit that the other person is better than you in one area so that you can focus on another strength within you.
6.) Abnormal sexual behaviour

Signs of seeking approval

1.) You do what others are doing and not what you want to do.
2.) Other people’s goals and standards often become your goals and standards.
3.) You always succumb to peer pressure.
4.) You are inwardly dissatisfied but you want to please others.
5.) You are not comfortable when people don’t compliment you.
6.) You don’t know when to be at the fore front and when not to be at the fore front.
7.) Your purpose of speaking is to get approval and not to inform or educate.

Consequences of identity crisis

1.) Victims are often headed in the wrong direction.
2.) Some victims tend to celebrate others and always want to be someone else.
3.) Victims do things to feel accepted in places where they find themselves.
4.) Victims of identity crisis are always looking for external things to substitute for the missing inner value.
5.) It is hard for some victims to accept who they are and when it is hard to accept who you are then you will never be anybody in life.
6.) Identity crisis makes you focus on your weaknesses rather than strength.
7.) Identity crisis makes people go into pity party.
8.) Identity crisis can keep people in poverty.
9.) Identity crisis can get rich people into trouble or run them bankrupt.
10.) Identity crisis breaks marriages and other kinds of relationships.
11.) Churches are breaking or are in serious trouble because of pastors who have identity crisis.
12.) Identity crisis inhibits the display of true leadership in any organization because the focus will shift to personalities rather than goals.
13.) Imitation is what you do rather than emulation.

The way out of identity crisis

1.) You need a lot of guts not to always have your standards defined by others.
2.) Don’t always go by what is popular.
3.) Do what you know is right regardless of what others think.
4.) Keep discovering yourself to know why you are different from others and why you should live differently.
5.) Keep listening to audios and watch videos that keep you positively motivated to boost your self-esteem.

You will be surprised to see that a man’s perception can be viewed from the statement I made above. Everybody believes that you must work hard to be able to achieve anything in life and you must keep working even after achieving what you want to achieve so that the success can be maintained or even surpassed depending on the vision of the person in question.

You will also be surprised to see that there are people who surely believe in working hard but much more than working hard they believe they cannot succeed if they do not do any hard work in their lives. You may want to ask what hard work is and what makes it different from working hard!

I have always used the example of two people working in Federal Power Cooperation to produce electricity for the nation, what those of us in Nigeria refer to as Power Holdings Company of Nigeria. One man sits in the office writing whatever it is that he is writing but another goes about in the hot scorching sun carrying ladders and climbing poles to fix wires and make sure there is electricity in the houses of the citizens. The amazing thing is that this man who sits in the office under the comfort of air conditioners will earn far more than the one who goes about carrying ladders and climbing poles. Now the one who sits in the office is the one working hard because those climbing poles cannot do anything until his pen and paper have come to a conclusion but those climbing poles are the ones doing hard work!

The one working hard though under AC has deadlines to meet and has to set goals for his subordinates. He also has to ensure that all the goals are met and apart from the goals being met he has to see to the general productivity of his staff. Now it takes working hard to be effective in that area. It takes working hard to be responsible for the activities of other people. The other man who goes about with ladders does not have to thin about other people in the organization. He only gets instructions and acts on the instructions given to him per time. It is real hard work for him to carry the ladder because he has to use his energy all of the time. Even while on the pole he still needs energy to stand properly on the ladder or else he will fall off.

What is the difference between these people you may want to ask? The difference is that they have different perceptions and mindsets. One believes in hard work to produce result. Until energy is required in the work he has to do he does not believe that he has worked. The other man who works hard knows he only needs to use his brain. All he needs is his mind to do whatever he wants to do. Whatever is mind conceives would be articulated clearly for others to do.

It therefore means that the man who is working hard has foresight but the one who wants hard work does not have foresight. Hard work does not plan but working hard plans what to do. Hard work is limited but working hard delegates and multiplies. Hard work gets lesser results or remuneration compared to his input but working hard gets much more than his input so work hard and pay those who want to do hard work.

If you do not say what you see you may never see it in reality. The creator of the heaven and earth and the master of the universe kept speaking into existence the things that he saw in his mind. Over and over again the account of creation says that, “and God said…”

There is so much power in confession and one of the ways to bring your vision into reality is to keep speaking what you see. There will be reasons for you to doubt what you see but make sure your mouth does not say anything different from what you see in your mind. “Keep saying it, don’t stop talking it,” is what Pastor Chris Oyakhilome would say.

In 1996 when I got into high school I said to two of my friends that I was going to become the Senior Prefect in my final year but they laughed and scorned. In the year 2002 I became the Senior Prefect for 2002/2003 academic set. When I got into the university and I had the opportunity to represent the university in Nigeria International Model United Nations’ Conference I said in year 2006, “I am going to become the Secretary General for Model United Nations.” In December 2007 after the closing dinner for the annual conference I got a confirmation of my appointment as the Secretary General of Nigeria International Model United Nations’ Conference for year 2008.

When my colleagues where laughing at me I knew so well that what they thought didn’t matter as much as what I think about what I am saying so I did not care. It does not matter who does not believe what you are saying. What matters is if you as a person believe what you are saying to yourself. I was taking a training in World Class Compere Academy in March 2008 when the facilitator, Oladele Olunike said that statistics have told us 77% of self talk would be negative. With that consciousness we have to deliberately talk ourselves out of failure.

It is your responsibility to talk yourself out of failure. It is your responsibility to talk yourself out of poverty. It is your responsibility to talk yourself out of depression. It is your responsibility to talk yourself out of mediocrity. It is your responsibility to talk your way into success. It is your responsibility to talk your vision into reality. It is your responsibility to talk yourself into new levels. It is your responsibility to talk your adversaries into silence.

If you care so much about what people say and focus on that then you will have what they say as a reality not because it is the reality but because you refused to say what should be the reality. No matter how hard you prepare your preparation for your vision is not complete without your confession.

There is a force behind your confession that grants speed to your vision. It’s like driving a nail into the wood. Every hit of the hammer drives it in the more. As for your vision, every confession hastens the reality of that vision. We as human beings are products of words. Most of our values were formed based on what we heard so our present realities are products of yesterday’s confessions and tomorrow’s realities will be a product today’s confession. Keep confessing the vision.

“Preparation,” they say, “is the mother of manifestation.” When preparation collides with opportunity what happens is success. You cannot recognize opportunity when there is nothing you have been preparing for. What appears to be an opportunity to you only appears to be an opportunity because you suddenly spot that thing that you have spent so much time preparing for.

If you are not prepared for it will only appear to you as just another issue that one must face on daily basis. Life on daily basis presents to us challenges and the good news is that the challenges come with opportunity all of the time. There are people in the world today who have become celebrities as a result of the circumstances that naturally should have killed them. Some others have died in those situations but they did not.

What will single us out in most of the things that we do in life will be the preparation that we have put into it. We cannot have different inputs in the things of life and still expect the same results. At this point it is pertinent to say that there are types of input into what a man calls his vision and the type of input that you have will obviously determine your result. There are so many people who only have intelligence as the input into their visions but they get to a level only to realize that there is a level in vision where intelligence cannot take you further. You may just need to get companionship at that level so the input that you have in the lives of some of the people around will afford you the opportunity to fetch companionship. If you have had no input then you will not have anyone to offer that companionship that should take your vision further than where it is.

You will also get to a level where you will realize that the only thing you need to go further will be an extra ordinary help that goes beyond what any man can offer. At this point, intelligence and companionship will fail you because the help you need at this point has to come from the ultimate source of all true visions. You just know at this level that it has to be God.

If it must be good then it must be God because it cannot be good if it is not God. Only God can make it good because all good and perfect gifts come from him so it just must be God to be good because no one else has the capacity to make it good except God.

Therefore, in fulfilling your vision it is imperative to have a personal preparation with God in life with your vision. God is like an architect giving instruction to construction engineers on how to erect a building because he created the design they are working with. God created the design you are working with and he understands it more than any other person so he is your best guide.

The best the internet will do for you is to show you what others have done but it cannot give you the capacity to do those things. Only HIM can make to “will and to do” so you do not have any complete preparation for vision because he gave you the vision in the first place. When preparation is in place then you are ready for a place in life.

One of the things that have helped great men in attaining the heights that they have attained in the pursuit of purpose has been the consistence of sacrifices paid for the vision to become a reality. One day in the month of October in year 2008 I called a young man to come and pick the television I had just put into my new office. I really thought I needed it in my office to be abreast of things going on in the society but I decided to give it out. In December of 2008 I went for a TV interview regarding one of my books, Writing Business Proposal, that was new in the market at that time. After the interview the presenter was so impressed and she said she had been looking for some to take a motivational segment on the programme for ten minutes twice a week. I gave out my TV and a few months later I became consistent on TV and was running a motivational talk segment twice a week.

Running a motivational segment on TV was a part of my dreams but one thing that was to unlock that reality was with me. It sometimes takes a lot of sensitivity to know what you should let go so that what you are expecting can come. There are things you must give up if you want to go up. Someone once said that you have to give up to go up

Sacrifices are not necessarily in giving gifts to other people but they are important because they open up doors for us in line with our vision. Sometimes what our sacrifices do is to speed up time for us so that we can do in ten months miraculously what should be done in 10 years.

One of the sacrifices to make for your dream or vision is to sit down and work at it. Others may be playing around but you cannot afford to be playing around because you have something in mind. Others may cheat to have the easy way out but you cannot because you know integrity counts with the kind of vision that you have.

Sacrifices may go as far as eating one meal a day when every other person is eating three meals a day. You may have to do this to take your dream to a desired height but after that dream has been taken to a desired height you will realize that it is that dream that will begin to provide the things you denied yourself access to.

Imagine parents who starve so that their children can go to school. Imagine parents who have limited clothes so that their children can be truly educated. A pregnant woman is not the one that should be found at the beach expecting to have fun! When everyone is jumping about she has to sit somewhere. When everyone is eating whatever they like she has to eat a few things among what she likes and a lot of what is recommended because she is pregnant and is expecting safe delivery. After delivery she can join others to do whatever they are doing and she can also jump about at any time of the day.

The reason a pregnant woman will not do just any thing is because she has to make sacrifices for the baby to be safely delivered. When you are pregnant with a vision you don’t do what everyone is doing because you don’t want a still birth and you are expecting safe delivery.

Where you find a man today determines where you will find him tomorrow. A man cannot be everywhere and still claim to be going somewhere. You are not the one who should be found every where if you know where you are going. People may complain they have not seen you in a while but that is not an excuse for you to go looking for anyone every where. If you are the one who keeps looking for people all around and you want to be in every party and every event you will soon lose your value.

Dr. David Oyedepo said, “some people said they have not seen me for a while and that they just wanted to come and say hi. I said to them, “do you visit a woman in the labour room? I am in the labour so you can’t see me now since you do not visit a woman in the labour room” Another friend of mine, Oyinkansola Alabi, while pastoring on campus said, “someone said I am scarce and I said to the person do you find diamonds everywhere? It is only stones you find everywhere.”

If you know the importance of where you are going to in life then you will admit that it is not everywhere that you should go to. There is always a place of preparation. A man cannot claim to have examinations in a classroom in a few days and the same man is always found on the football pitch. The only exception is if the same man is going to be taking a sports examination.

You cannot be shouting I have a dream and perpetually be in the company of people who are looking for how to make instant money and how to always enjoy life. Chief Obafemi Awolowo quoted to have said, “the heights that great men attained were not attained by sudden flight but while their companions slept they burnt the midnight candle.”

Find the right place that will be a link to where you are going in life. Destiny locates only those who stay in the right place. The man who discovered the law of gravity discovered it by being under an almond tree when an almond fruit fell on his head. He began to wonder why the fruit would only fall and not rise and that made him popular. For a man of destiny, everywhere is not your place so you cannot be everywhere.

If you do not know where you are going you will not know who should go with you. When you truly have a vision which leads you to a definite destination you also have to be very careful about your companion on the way to that destination. It has been said again and again that, “behind every successful man there is a woman,” though the woman are now fighting that they are beside and not behind. It does not matter to me if they are behind or beside. What matters is that they are around but more importantly, we should know that only a successful woman can help a man to succeed and only a successful man can help a woman succeed.

You must have heard that it takes two to tangle but I will say it often takes two to succeed as far as this subject is concerned. Some people have died before their time as a result of their choice of spouse and some others are not dead but they are as good as dead even while living because of their choice of spouse.

A man like Winston Churchill who was highly revered in his time said, “my most brilliant achievement was my ability to persuade my wife to marry me.” If the prime minister of a nation said that his most brilliant achievement was his ability to persuade his wife to marry him then it means he is acknowledging the importance of the wife’s role in his success. A young man once told those of us in a meeting about how things were tough when he was getting started in his business. He had resigned from an oil company to start his business. He was a big boy and was enjoying life but he wanted fulfillment and not satisfaction so he stepped out to start his company. At a point when things were so hard he said to his wife that he was going to take up a job but the wife said to him, “I will be disappointed if you do because I married you for your vision.” That statement stopped him from taking the wrong step at that time and he kept going until there was a breakthrough for him.

For some women who are going to succeed, they must really understand that they need a man who truly understands their vision. One should give great credits to a man like Pastor Taiwo Odukoya who gave a great platform to his wife, Pastor Mrs. Bimbo Odukoya. The wife became more famous along the line and so many people even taught that the wife was the founder of the church. I heard of situations where they both will go out and the hosts will welcome the wife and leave the husband out of the reception but she would look back to show them her husband. At that moment the people then pay some attention to the husband.

It takes a mature man to let her wife keep succeeding without growing envious or insecure at whatever pace the wife seems to be succeeding.

There are men who would have been more successful than they are but they are not going far because of their choice of women. You need to remember that you will take your most vital decisions with your spouse and decisions determine destiny so you are going to have a fatal end from choosing the wrong spouse. If you think you have already chosen the wrong spouse, there is a way out. Attitude can win people over but prayer can change them. In other words it will require prayers to change and attitude to keep going on.

From times immemorial a lot of people have mistaken used the words vision and ambition interchangeably but they do not in any real sense of it mean the same thing. It is possible for you to find some correlations in the English meaning but they are still deeper than what they both seem to portray.

It should be noted that in most cases ambition would be personal and selfish but vision is selfless. While ambition thinks about what to become and vision thinks about what can become of others. Ambition thinks about what to take and vision thinks about what to contribute. Take for instance the case of two young people who both want to become medical doctors. When the first was asked why he wanted to be a medical doctor he said, “I want to be a doctor because doctors are rich.” The other boy responded by saying, “I hate the way people are dying and I want to be the solution to their problems when I become a doctor.” From the statements made the intentions are clear. One is seeking social and financial security and the other is seeking the expansion of life expectancy of others.

When all you think about in what you want to do is what you will become then all you have is an ambition. When you begin to think about other people then you have a vision. What most of our politicians in the country have today is an ambition and that is why they cannot solve most of our problems yet. They got into office by thinking about what to become and not thinking about what to do for the society.

A community or local government must be vision driven and a state must be vision driven. A nation and a continent at large should be vision driven because that is the only way to move forward. Your personal life must be vision driven so that in all you do you will think about the progress of others and the advancement of your nation.

The best that a man with ambition will do is to leave some inheritance for his children and his children’s children but a man with vision will touch generations. The victory of President Obama as the first black president of the United States is not unconnected with the vision of Martin Luther King over four decades before the reality. He said, “I have a dream that one day my four little children will no longer be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.” Now we know that Obama was judged by the content of his character and not by the colour of his skin.

I have not said that ambition is bad because we must understand that there is an ambitious part of every vision. We can both receive a vision but our hearts may not be in the same capacity to enlarge the vision. It is not God’s responsibility to “big-the-picture” for us after giving us a vision. It is our responsibility. Dr. David Oyedepo said, “any vision that does not add value to others is an illusion.” The likes of Mandela and Ghandi had a vision for the emancipation of their people and not the personal political interests that others had. The vision of Bill Gates was to make sure there is computer in every home. The vision of Henry Ford was to make sure cars became affordable for the common man. The vision of Mark, the young man who founded Face Book was to create a platform for reconnection of people who have lost contact.

Life barely survives when we all have ambition but life flourishes when we have a vision.

Buying a wristwatch and paying for a seminar might be options laid before you but you really have to decide which one will come first and the benefit of the two for you in the long run. It is obvious that there are many things that can substitute for a wrist watch but you may not have too many things substituting for that seminar. If you have a mobile phone your mobile phone can tell you what time it is. If you have a wall clock that can tell you what time it is. Your computer can tell you what time it is and a friend around you can tell you what time it is as well but the case if different with the seminar.
Attending a seminar where a certificate is going to issued might be what will give you the edge in a business proposition where all the people involved have nearly the same certifications. Your wrist watch will enhance your ego right there and then in the presence of those who see you but the certificate from that seminar can give you information that will fetch you so much that you can begin to give wrist watches out as gifts. It is not in any way a wrong thing to buy a wrist watch but it might just be the wrong time to buy it considering the options that are available to choose from.
It may seem right to buy a car because you need to move about for your day to day activities and your businesses but another option before you might just be to buy a plot of land for a future building project. I remember my father was using a rickety car for seventeen years because of some of his building projects instead of buying a new car. Before he settled down to say that it was the right time to buy a new car he already had about seven plots of land that he and my mum bought instead of a car. His new car would have given him prestige and the people who saw him would have admired him so much that they would want to be like him. The bitter pill is still that the car would have taken a lot from him because he would need to fuel it on daily basis and would need to service the car regularly. If people learn to take the right and tough decisions then they would have realized that some of them have houses in their fuel thanks. I said houses in their fuel thanks because the fuel they buy on daily basis will buy some bags of cement for the houses they need to build and it will buy some blocks for them.
When I was in the university I remember having to choose between buying a new pair of shoes and buying new stocks from a public offer. It was obvious I needed a new pair of shoes because the only one I was wearing was breaking already and everyone who saw me could see that the shoe was breaking. I went for the stocks because I knew that the shoes if worn consistently would be worn out in about six to nine months at that time. It was nice to be able to take a decision not to please people watching me but to prepare for my financial independence.
Sometimes when it looks as if we are stuck in the middle of taking an important decision, the decision to take will be obvious to us because one of the decisions is usually about instant satisfaction and pleasing the people who are watching us.