I was living in Barbados in 2021.

My dad went for a scheduled operation back in the UK, which was successful, but in scans they separately found an aggressive cancer on his lung.

We were told he only had weeks or months to live.

I was due to fly home a few weeks later anyway… but should I move my flight and come straight home?

I found the decision really difficult. Part of me felt I should be on the next flight home. Part of me felt I should see out all my commitments in my last couple of weeks on the island. Both options had downsides, and I didn’t know how to weigh those up. In particular, the idea of not going home had layers of guilt all over it.

Was it selfish to stay?

Lots of people tried to help, but ultimately all they had to say was “there’s no right answer”.

Eventually my sister reframed the dilemma in a way that I found really powerful.

She said:

It sounds like your family values are saying to go home. And your personal values are saying to stay. They’re both valid, and they’re conflicting.

Something clicked.

Until she’d said that, staying had felt selfish.

But what I realised was that it wasn’t selfishness (in the negative way I was understanding it).

It was simply personal/friendship values.

Those values were totally valid. And important. AND they were conflicting with my family values, which were valid and important too.

Her reframing didn’t answer the decision for me in itself. But it helped remove the baggage surrounding the options, so I could evaluate from a fairer and more accurate place.

It changed the equation from ”ME vs MY FAMILY” to ”MY personal values vs MY family values”.

For the first time I could deeply feel the truth in what everyone had been telling me—that neither answer was wrong or right. Because there is no objective wrong and right. Just my own values, and my own feelings.

That’s what owning a decision is really about.

Recognising that it’s not me vs someone else, or one situation vs another situation. It’s a battle between conflicting values that all exist only within myself.

With that realisation, I was quickly able to get in touch with my feelings about what the right decision was, for me. (Which incidentally was to stay in Barbados those two weeks to see out those remaining commitments with friends, and then fly home—a couple of days earlier than originally planned.)

I think this can be extrapolated to all kinds of decisions.

Decisions involving business, family, friends, events, and anything else.

Before you make the decision, make sure none of the options on the table are directly about someone else, or coming from other people’s voices in your head, or any other baggage. Reframe so that no decision is ever your wants vs someone else’s wants, or some conflict between the actual entities that you’re deciding between.

Rather, it’s a conflict between differing interval values inside you.

Then maybe it’ll be easier to feel what’s right.

It’s a lot of responsibility, but it’s also very freeing: after all, it’d never be OK for anyone else to suggest that your own values and value decisions aren’t valid. You’ve taken ownership of your decision, and you’re always acting in service of the best possible compromise between your own conflicting values. There’s no other true way to live.

You and only you create your reality… and you and only you live it. No option is selfish (or every option is, equally!) Do your best, and own it all.