Guiding Lily

Bad Decisions (Season 1 Episode 2)

Previously in Guiding Lily (*Season 1 Episode 1*).

Lily learns how to make good decisions.

This story and headline were written without the assistance of AI.

As Lily entered the cabin she could smell the delicious scent of fish frying on the old wood stove she had burnt herself on many a time. There in an old cast iron fry-pan on the top of the stove laid the trout her and Grandpa had caught that morning.

Hey Grandpa what can I do to help with dinner?

John plated the trout along with some fresh season vegetables and headed for the table.

You can sit yourself down and enjoy dinner.

So, will Grandpa Ethan be joining us for dinner?

No, I am afraid not Lily. He’s been called down to the commercial fishing docks again to control and disperse another one of those lobster protests between the local lobster fishermen and the native lobster fishermen. As usual, something about who has a right to fish out of season.

I’m sorry for you and Grandpa Ethan always having to face one kind of hatred or another directed at you guys by this town. You know I love you both unconditionally right?

I know Lily. When Ethan quit his police detective job in the city to take the police chief job here in town he committed to making a life with me as my partner here in the cabin. We knew then that we would be dealing with hatred in one form or another just by making a life together in this town. It is what it is. We are sticking by each other and our decisions to simply love each other no matter what.

Lily paused her eating and took a long sip of her wine.

So, how can you help me to make decisions I can stick by in my own life the same way you guys do?

Lily, your life will be all about your own perspective of your sexuality. Our small town community will constantly be trying to influence your perspective of your sexuality every day.

You mean everyone in town has already judged my sexuality. They are not just satisfied in judging my sexuality, they actively want to influence and change it.

It’s no wonder that you have a screwed up view of your sexuality. You think that a simple setback in your life like making the public statement “I am Gay!” is the end of your world. You’re constantly living in fear because the world scares you.

I am scared because my own perception of my sexuality is what is determining the way I see the world. So, is that the wrong way to perceive my world?

Whether you recognize it or not, you already have a set perspective. Most of us never consciously decide how we look at the world. We inherit it from our upbringing, our environment, our fears, and the stories we tell ourselves.

Before now, I wasn’t aware of my perspectives at all. I just lived. And I assumed the way I saw things was fixed. Like my eye color. Like my height. Something you didn’t touch. From what you’re telling me now, I was wrong.

I want you to understand something that sounds obvious once you see it. You can change your life’s perspective. You can literally decide how you want to interpret your life.

What are you saying Grandpa. That my happiness, my life, my success in life and every relationship I will ever have are all filtered through the perspective I wake up every morning with?

Yes. Most people’s views of their sexuality are shaped before they’re even old enough to understand what sexuality is. If you grew up around opposing views, you normalize those views. If you grew up around hatred, you learn to spew hatred. If you grew up around criticism, you assume you’re always one mistake away from being rejected.

Wow that’s pretty heavy Grandpa. So you’re saying we all have some sort of default perspectives settings!

Exactly. Then you grow up, and life gives you more freedom. You can choose your own sexuality. Choose your own friends. Choose what relationships you have with others. Choose what you believe to be true for yourself. But there is a weird choice most people miss ever making when they become adults.

Wait let me guess. We never change our default perspectives.

Exactly. We still see the world through our childhood perspective, only now we call it “personality.” We call it “how I am.” We call it “being realistic.”

I don’t know Grandpa. It sounds to me like our childhood perspectives actually just go sort of unexamined.

The hard truth here Lily is that adulthood comes with a responsibility most avoid. You have to decide what kind of mind-set you want to live with because you are going to live in that mind-set every day when you open your eyes in the morning.

I think I understand what you are saying here Grandpa and I think I know what kind of adult mind-set I need to adopt going forward in order to live comfortably with my sexuality orientation, but I just don’t seem to have any practical idea about how to actually adopt it to my everyday life.

John stood and cleared their plates, putting them into the sink to be washed later. John turned and leaned against the kitchen counter.

I don’t know if I have the answer to that question Lily but let me tell you how I went about answering the difficult questions in my life. When something felt heavy, urgent, overwhelming, or deeply personal, I would ask myself a simple question. Will this matter in a week, in a month, or in a year? That was the mental model I used to guide my difficult adult decisions. It was simply a sort of decision making shortcut I used to stop myself from making really bad decisions.

Lily stood and joined her Grandpa at the counter and began preparing coffee for their desert.

That’s it. That’s your secret. You played twenty questions in your head like some weirdo talking to yourself.

Not twenty questions just one and that one question forced me to do two things at once.

You mean two things besides getting all kinds of strange side-eyes from the people around you.

First, side-eyes or not, it slows you down. Most bad decisions are speed decisions. You react. You fire back. You scream or yell, you fight imagined battles or blow up relationships because the emotions you are feeling at the time actually feel like the truth.

Wow, that makes so much sense. Just put everything happening at the time into slow motion to kill the power of an instant bad decision.

Exactly! Second, it forces perspective. It moves you from “what I feel right now” to “what this actually means.” It reduces stress by changing the way you appraise what’s happening. You stop treating whatever it is like the end of the world and start treating it like a moment in time in your life that will eventually pass.

John filled two coffee mugs for their desert and returned to the table and sat down.

I can understand that Grandpa. You are saying the further something is in time, distance, or proximity, the more we think in bigger concepts.

That’s right Lily! More “why” less “noise.” More meaning, less drama. The more connected you feel to your future self, the less you sabotage yourself in the present. You stop treating tomorrow’s you like a stranger who can deal with the consequences.

So, your grandfatherly advice to your sexually confused lesbian granddaughter is when I can feel the future, I make choices that benefit everyone around me. That’s why your life with Eathan has worked so well.

Lily returned to the table and sat back down with two plates of apple pie.

That’s right Lily. Perspective is power. It’s the difference between being ruled by your emotions and using your emotions as guidance. In the rare times when I do actually dwell on my life with Eathan I remind myself that I could leave this life at any moment. I let that thought determine what I do and say and think with regards to loving Ethan.

That sounds kind of dark Grandpa. People around you could hear that and think that nothing matters to you.

John paused to stir some milk and sugar into his coffee mug.

That’s not the point Lily. The point is to stop acting like every little thing deserves your whole life. Most of what will steal your peace of mind is not important. It’s just loud.

But I think there might be a trap here too Grandpa. If I take the longest possible time filter, your death filter, I can slide into thinking that life is meaningless. If I zoom out far enough, everything becomes dust. Relationships, other people, arguments, successes, failures. All gone.

Lily gave John a confused look over the rim of her coffee cup.

That perspective is useful for humility, but it’s useless for living, Lily. You don’t need a lens that makes you numb. You need a lens that makes you effective. So the real skill is to use the longest time filter that still produces action.

So, you are saying that my life perspective is all about my life’s identity. Whether I call this a one day, a one month, or a one year perspective, the goal is to think about my life’s trajectory.

Yes and no. When it comes to the eternity/death perspective use that sparingly. Use it to drop pettiness. Use it to forgive. Use it to stop taking yourself so seriously. But don’t use it to decide whether you should build something meaningful with someone. The fact that life ends does not make life pointless. It makes it precious.

So, Grandpa, you’re saying the life model you use can change my life to because most of my suffering is time-horizon suffering. I’m not crushed by facts. I’m crushed by interpretation. I’m crushed by the belief that the thing in front of me is permanent, defining, and catastrophic when it usually isn’t.

John and Lily finished their coffee and desert and set about doing the dinner dishes.

Exactly Lily. Most of your problems will get solved if you give yourself enough time. Not because time is magic, but because time lets you respond instead of react. Time lets you see patterns. Time lets you learn. Time lets you calm down, which is when you make your best decisions. That’s what my advice gives you. Not comfort, but clarity. And once you have clarity, you become hard to stop.

Lily finished the last sip of wine in her glass and handed it over to Grandpa John so he could finish washing the dishes and cleaning up from dinner. At that moment a knock at the cabin front door rang out and Grandpa went to see who was visiting at such a late hour.

Grandpa opened the door to find Ray Abbott, the town’s assistant police chief facing him wearing an ashen face.

John, I am sorry to have to tell but tonight Ethan was shot down on the fishing docks trying to break-up a riot that broke out between the local lobster fishermen. He has been taken to hospital and is in critical condition. I’m so sorry.

Lily bore the full weight of her Grandpa John as he collapsed, and she attempted to break his fall to the floor as he passed out from the shocking news of Ethan being shot.