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    Pause: How to Turn Tough Choices into Strong Decisions
    Pause: How to Turn Tough Choices into Strong Decisions
    Pause: How to Turn Tough Choices into Strong Decisions
    Ebook87 pages38 minutes

    Pause: How to Turn Tough Choices into Strong Decisions

    By Joan Gibson

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Think of the last time you faced a tough decision. Did you feel overwhelmed? Confused? Challenged? How should a son talk to his elderly mother about stopping driving? Should a high school senior “come out” to her parents about being gay? How does a wife choose between home or an institution for her husband with advanced Alzheimer’s? How should a neighborhood association deal with opposition to building an Islamic center? Using these and other tough choices we may face in our daily lives, Pause shows how you, your families, neighbors and others can come together to make strong decisions, especially when perspectives and values collide. We all look for the best resolution for those we love or lead. Pause, with its step by step practical guidance, helps us get there.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJoan Gibson
    Release dateJul 15, 2013
    ISBN9781301589296
    Pause: How to Turn Tough Choices into Strong Decisions
    Author

    Joan Gibson

    Joan McIver Gibson is a philosopher and ethicist who has been writing and teaching about practical ethics for over 30 years. She founded and directed the Health Sciences Ethics program at the University of New Mexico, chaired a hospital ethics committee for 20 years, and continues to write and consult in the area of values-based decision making. For more information: joanmgibson.com.

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      Book preview

      Pause - Joan Gibson

      FOREWORD

      Three summers ago, over a span of roiling weeks, I faced the toughest decision of my life.

      Or so I believed at the time.

      I gleaned information from writers I respect in The New York Times and from on-line sources; I spoke privately to professionals in the health field and received opinions to support all sides of a mounting family crisis. Finally, on my own, numb with concern and running out of time to forge a plan, I took a long, deep breath and did the best I could with the evidence at hand.

      The result was far from perfect, but it was a start.

      Had I had this spirited resource book by Joan McIver Gibson, I might have saved hours of flailing, felt less isolated in reaching a course of action and, ultimately, realized that tougher decisions would no doubt lie ahead, but that each could be addressed with fresh insights and a modicum of new confidence.

      In Pause: How to Turn Tough Choices into Strong Decisions, Dr. Gibson presents real cases that can apply to many of life’s stumbling blocks. With clarity and compassion, she shows that our thorniest challenges do not involve differentiating between the forces of good and evil, as in comic books, but between the merits of good and good, or good and slightly better.

      Part of the struggle in decision making is to resist writing all the parts, speaking all the roles, presuming to know others’ reactions and, therefore, failing to ask and to listen. This can lead to the discomforting limbo of avoiding an issue for fear of conflict, or wallowing too long in the energy-zapping slough of Why me?

      What a conceit. Why any of us?

      In chapter after chapter, Joan Gibson’s curiosity about the potential of the human race shines through the maelstrom that can engulf major choices. A strong advocate of engaged listening (listening is more than just waiting to speak), she urges applying the soothing balm that comes when, in timely fashion, we press the Pause button of the mind.

      She is a thoughtful optimist, and it serves her readers well.

      Judith Morgan

      Co-author of Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel

      (Random House, 1995)

      La Jolla, CA

      January 2013

      INTRODUCTION

      A rancher, when asked about his philosophy of fence building, said, If you don’t have time to do it right the first time, when will you have time to do it over?

      Our society worships speed and demands immediate solutions. We praise those who think and act quickly. As a result, expensive and time-consuming do-overs abound. Whether it’s buying a luxury car on impulse, marrying or divorcing in a moment of high passion, waiting until the eleventh hour to pass critical legislation, or plunging a country into war, hasty decisions can have long-lasting and damaging consequences. Perhaps the hastiest decision of all is procrastination. Today’s political landscape is strewn with the fallout from avoiding tough choices.

      It’s not just hot button issues like abortion, climate change, guns and health care that challenge our civility. In our personal lives as well, people and values clash. Unless we have chosen to avoid conflict altogether, we are tempted to move fast and get beyond our

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