Editorial May 29, 1978 Issue

The decision years

Geoffrey J. Barratt

In our late teens to mid-twenties we're perhaps especially faced with decisions—decisions that set certain courses for our lives: education, marriage, career, attitude toward morality and toward religion (whether we've been brought up in a religion or not). If things are to go well, this will not be a matter of luck but of good choices.

Any time is a good time to become a skilled decision maker. There's a rule of thumb that, when we understand it, makes us better choosers. This is the way Mary Baker Eddy puts it: "The point for each one to decide is, whether it is mortal mind or immortal Mind that is causative." ^{Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 195;} The way we arrive at a decision can be as important as the decision itself—in fact, our general views about life determine what kind of choice we make, in so many things. When we take a metaphysical rather than a physical view of ourselves and the world, this makes a world of difference. It eliminates the luck element.

Whatever our underlying standpoint, it will have great influence on what we're going to do with our lives. Christian Science stresses that the way we think is the primary thing—it is thinking that determines our experience, not our experience that determines our thinking. If we decide it is mortal mind that is causative—so that the brain, material thinking, persons, are virtually the only things to consider—then we've opted for limitation. We end up searching for satisfaction in materiality, and believing in a more or less chaotic universe of random events.

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The decision years

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