June 30
The Cost of Waiting
While we postpone deciding whether to keep a commitment, it is easy to tell ourselves there is no harm in waiting. Someone else is leaving the time open. They cannot make another arrangement because our uncertainty occupies the space where an answer belongs. From our side, nothing has happened. From theirs, the delay has already begun to cost something.
Some decisions genuinely need time, especially when important facts are missing. We are still free to say what is known and when an answer is likely. An honest conversation about uncertainty treats the other person's planning as real. It may reveal that we cannot promise what they need, or that a little more time is possible. Avoiding the conversation leaves them carrying our indecision without having agreed to do so. Willingness takes an ordinary form here: admitting where things stand before we have found an answer that will please everyone involved.
Who is already affected by the decision I think I have not yet made?
They deserve to know where things stand.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Step Three, discussion of affirmative action.