We gave our dog a bone this weekend. When he saw it, he was super excited, whimpering, jumping around, not knowing what he should do. He just wanted the bone. Once we gave it to him, he was straight outside to his favourite gnawing spot on the grass. A few hours later, the funny things happen. At night, he wants to be inside with us. But he doesn’t want to leave his bone outside, so he picks it up and brings it in. However, inside he doesn’t want to put the bone down, so he moves around whimpering, clearly unsure of what to do.

However, with our dog, if we go outside with him and then get him to drop the bone where he can’t see it from inside the house, he forgets about it for a while.

Having to choose between two desired things is not an uncommon human experience. We are conflicted. Understandably and with good reason. And yet we need to choose.

The thing about change we rarely read about is that choices are not always clear. And in fact, often there are choices between two desired outcomes. Not one desired outcome and one undesirable. Both are desirable, we just can’t have both.

How do we choose then? Does one, like the dog bone, need to be put out of sight for the night so we can sleep?

Photo by Aditya Joshi