Photo by Logan Voss on Unsplash

When I'm facing a decision, I sometimes start by asking myself a simple question: am I moving away from something, or am I moving towards something?

On the surface they feel different. Moving away is reactive, the status quo isn't working and you want out. Moving toward feels more intentional, more calculated. You have a destination in mind.

But here's the thing: they're technically the same move. Every time you move away from something, you are simultaneously moving toward something else relatively speaking, whether it was your intention or not. The direction looks different depending on which reference point you're standing at. That's the relativity part.

I was also thinking that there are some many gravitation fields in space, what moving away from one heavenly body really is just entering another's pull. You're never truly in free space, you're always in something's gravity. Moving away from one pull just means another one is doing the work now, whether you know it or not.

The problem is partial information. Let's say if you want to become a world class musician, does that mean you're moving away from being a professional hockey player? Maybe. But if you only see one vector. When you declare, "I'm becoming a musician!", you might not fully acknowledge what you're leaving behind. And if you only see the other, "I'm leaving hockey!" you don't have clarity on what you might choose instead.

Good decisions, I think, require seeing both. (Or at least try) Not because one is better than the other, but because the honest picture includes both reference points. What are you moving toward? And what does that mean you're moving away from, whether you chose it consciously or not?