“Keep your options open.”
It’s a common refrain we hear from parents, teachers, friends, and mentors. Sometimes this is good advice, but often it isn’t. When used as a blanket strategy, maintaining too many options can limit personal and spiritual growth.
Keeping our options open is a strategy best used early in the decision-making process when we are still trying to understand the benefits and drawbacks of different choices. Early life is a good example of a time when closing doors too soon is unwise. For example, it would be a grave error to choose a college major or career in kindergarten because a child’s strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes are not yet known. It takes years of experimentation to figure these things out, which is a primary function of childhood and adolescence.
Yet, too often, adults are still operating with the idea that maintaining as many options as possible for as long as possible—often indefinitely—is in their best interests.
There are three reasons people keep every option open preventing greater personal and spiritual development.
1. Lack of Focus
We only have so much mental energy and attention. To do anything well, we need to narrow our focus to a limited set of things upon which to train our attention. In fact, at any given time, we are only able to pay attention to one thing, idea, or task.
A large body of science shows humans are not capable of multitasking. We already have spouses, kids, jobs, hobbies, and other relationships to manage, and an everlasting stream of up-to-the minute social media feeds replete with sensationalism and outrage. Maintaining a large number of options for most things in life is nothing more than a distraction to figuring out how to live a meaningful life.
This lack of focus is compounded when we admit that maintaining too many options is often an excuse to avoid commitment. Excelling at anything and reaping the benefits requires more than the almost flippant focus we devote to trivial daily issues. It requires deep focus over extended periods of time. Avoiding commitment forestalls or even subverts the pursuit of excellence.
This often occurs in relationships. Some people avoid marriage because they want to maintain the option to leave more easily if things go south in their relationship. While marriage is not for everyone, one has to wonder whether it makes sense to be in a relationship if maintaining optionality is the primary goal. Choosing to enter a long term relationship but keeping your options open by not marrying often comes down to a fear of commitment. Some people claim they don’t need society’s stamp of approval. I agree nobody should marry to garner approval from others, but is there really no difference between making a formal commitment and not making one?
2. Maintaining the Facade
Maintaining endless options is a facade. By keeping options open, we are closing off others. In relationships, avoiding an explicit commitment is closing off the potential for who you might become if you did make that commitment. Might it change the relationship for the better? What kind of spiritual growth, fulfillment, and satisfaction would be possible if you made the commitment to your partner by closing off other options? These benefits cannot be realized so long as leaving is on the table.
3. Fear
Maintaining optionality also often causes us to hold onto identities no longer serving us. This became stark to me when I decided to leave medical practice and take a full time job at a medical startup.
Initially, people asked me if I would continue to practice medicine on the side to “maintain my skills and options.” I thought this was a good idea at first and began looking into ways to practice medicine a little bit, even in a volunteer capacity. But as time went on, I realized that I was clinging to my view of myself as a clinician who sees patients. As long as I held tightly to that identity, other possibilities were off the table. The fear of losing the identity that had defined me was limiting my ability to grow and change.
Did I even want to practice medicine? I knew the answer was no, but I was still holding on to that vision of myself for dear life. I told myself it was prudent to maintain optionality, but fear was the driving factor. Even now, after leaving that startup 6 years later, people ask me if I will go back to clinical practice. I can if I want to, but that is not who I want to be.
Who could I be now that I don’t see myself as a practicing clinician? A blogger? A startup consultant? A spiritual guide to others? I’m still figuring it out, but I know I could never be anything else so long as I “maintain optionality” by clinging to my old identity.
All of us sometimes try to maintain the option to make choices when we’d be better served closing some things off. It may be a natural ancient survival instinct causing us to worry that our choices will kill us. But constantly maintaining maximum optionality robs us of the possibilities that come with making firm choices and dedicating ourselves to walking a specific path.
Next time you tell yourself you are just “keeping your options open,” ask yourself whether you stand more to gain from fewer options. You might be surprised by the doors that open when you start closing others.