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this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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hallettj, I really like your wife's take!
OP these two pieces of advice from an old college professor might help:
About 15 years ago I left the career path I'd started to move cross country and go to graduate school. I thought I might want to do research. Some wonderful things and some terrible times came out of that. I learned and grew greatly. Strangely I ended back on a similar career path, not as far along as I might have been but not back at the beginning either. Nothing's a mistake as long as you learn from it. Whichever path you take, check in with yourself sometimes to see if it's still working for you. If not, ask yourself what you can learn from that info.
If you have any questions about specifics I'm happy to try and answer.
Growing up (and admittedly into adulthood) I had trouble "quieting my brain" enough to make emotional decisions like the kind you've described. One trick that's really helped me make use of this technique is to assign each option to the face of a coin - in OP's case this might look like "heads I go back to school, tails I stay at this job". Then, having assigned each option and telling yourself you're going with the choice the coin makes, you flip it. Only, what you're really doing is getting a gut reaction to a decision being made for you, and you go with how you feel about it.
It was introduced to me as the "zen coin flip" in case anyone wants to learn more about it.
I've done this countless times for smaller things, but I've never thought to apply the coin flip to big changes. I'll give it a shot.
I wish you the best results, whatever you decide!
The zen coin flip was the first thing I thought of when reading OP's post.
Like you states, it does not replace the act of choosing.
But you can gauge by your own reaction to the result of the coin flip, which option you think deep down is the best.