How do you know if you’ve made the right decision?

Let’s say you’ve made a decision — to stay or to go, it doesn’t much matter. You’ve done your pro / con lists, you’ve queried your friends and family, you’ve taken a real look at your options, and here you are.

How do you know if it’s the right decision? There’s one key way: peace.

If this is the right decision, even if it brings with it sorrow or grief or anxiety, it will also bring with it a deep and abiding sense of peace, of rightness, of settledness.

Just to give you an example that for once has nothing to do with academia, once upon a time I was in a spiritual community that had fed me for a long time. Most all of my friends were either part of this community or friendly towards it. My wife was heavily involved. More and more, though, I was getting the feeling something was off.

I thought about it, I ignored it, I cried a lot, I stomped my feet, I worried, and eventually, I decided to leave. And when I made that decision, I got a deep, peaceful certainty in my belly.

It wasn’t fun. The next few months had a lot of tears and not a few fights with my darling wife as we navigated this new reality. I’m less close to some of those friends than I was then. There are things about it that I still miss. But that sense of peace never wavered, even on the days when I wished more than anything that things could be different than they were.

I had a similar experience when I was leaving academia. When I had to face telling my colleagues I was leaving, oh, I wanted more than anything else to Not Have to Do This Scary, Scary Thing. But I was also convinced it was the right thing to do.

See, when your insides match the world’s outsides, when you’re in alignment with where your life is going next, there’s something right about it.

And I’m not trying to suggest there’s fate or anything else at work — but I am trying to suggest that we know things subconsciously, unconsciously, that we try to deny for a long time. And when that knowing gets brought into the light and acted upon, well, it resolves a lot of tension. And that resolution brings peace.

If you aren’t getting peace, consider the possibility that the answer hasn’t yet appeared. But if you do experience peace, rest assured that following it will lead you to the next great adventure.