A “Confusion” of Opportunities (3 Min Read) | Vol. 164

August 15, 2025

“Learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder. And learning to choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder still, perhaps too hard.” — Barry Schwartz

A “Confusion” of Opportunities
A few weeks ago, I sat down for coffee with a potential new executive coach for The ONE Thing. Her credentials were impressive: a Ph.D., senior consulting experience at Deloitte, former Head of Onboarding at Google, and current experience in executive coaching. Here’s what caught my attention. When we met, she’d just received four job offers in recent weeks. And there I was, proposing a fifth opportunity!

We laughed about her predicament and wondered what the collective noun should be for opportunities. You often hear an “array” or a “flurry” of opportunities. We decided it should really be a “confusion” of opportunities. Because let’s be honest—it’s genuinely hard to choose! We shared our favorite collective nouns: a murder of crows, a flamboyance of flamingos, an exaltation of larks. (I guess birds get all the attention when it comes to creative naming.)

The coffee conversation got me thinking about a fundamental challenge we all face: How do we choose between good opportunities when we can’t test-drive our decisions?

Here’s the thing about choices—economists call it “opportunity cost.” It’s a simple concept: when you choose one thing, you give up everything else you could have chosen instead. If you spend your Saturday morning getting a head start on a work project, the opportunity cost might be sleeping in, working out, or tackling that home project. 

The challenge isn’t just that we have to choose. It’s that we don’t get to A/B test our lives. We can’t live multiple lives in parallel to see which decision would have worked out better. You’ll never know if you made the right choice. You can only try to make the best decision about your future based on what matters most to you.

This is where many people get stuck. They agonize over what might have been or spend endless hours trying to predict an unpredictable future.

Here’s what I’ve learned – big decisions deserve big thinking. When you’re choosing between significant opportunities, resist the urge to decide quickly. Instead, build in space for reflection. 

Talk it through with a trusted friend, mentor, or coach. Run it through the filter of your core values with them. Sometimes the act of explaining your thinking out loud reveals insights you can’t see when the thoughts are just swirling in your head. At The ONE Thing, we work with people on exactly these kinds of decisions because an outside perspective can be invaluable. (And by the way. You don’t need a committee. Too many opinions can make your head spin.)

Most importantly, remember that choosing well isn’t about picking the opportunity with the most upside or the least risk. It’s about picking the opportunity that best honors who you are and who you want to become.

You may never know if you made the “right” choice. But when your decision aligns with your values, you can have confidence that you made the best choice available to you at the time. And that’s all any of us can do.

PSA – Could you use more thinking time? August 25 – 28, we’re hosting a 4 x 4 Bootcamp designed to help attendees win back 4 hours a week. Grab your seat here. 

One question to ponder in your thinking time: What big decision am I facing right now that would benefit from big thinking?

Make an Impact!
Jay Papasan
Co-author of The ONE Thing & The Millionaire Real Estate Agent