This weekend was supposed to be our street barbeque. Every year, in July, and on Wimbledon Final weekend, our street holds a barbeque. Everyone brings something and there are at least three barbeques sizzling away. We eat and drink and sit around, chatting away, late into the night, and sometimes there is dancing and singing later on. It is one of the highlights of our year.

This time, with the weather forecast to be so cold and wet, we (the five ladies who organise it) decided to postpone it until we get some better weather. I was so disappointed as I trooped up and down the street, posting notes through the letter boxes. And, as it turned out, although it was cold – only 18 degrees – the rain held off. Maybe we should have gone ahead after all.

I think we all make decisions and then wonder if we’ve made the right one. Maybe we make decisions or choices we later regret. Sometimes these are small decisions like postponing the barbeque; sometimes they are bigger decisions, like choosing who to marry. Sometimes it’s the right decision and sometimes, when we look back, we can see we made a mistake.

Someone once told me the difference between a good leader and a bad leader is that a bad leader gets only four decisions right out of every ten, and a good leader gets six right. In neither case does the leader get every decision right, and the difference is only two degrees away.

When I look back, the biggest “mistake” I made was in marrying the man I did, when I did. I was only twenty, and still at university when I married for the first time. I should have waited. I shouldn’t have married him at all.

Yet, if I hadn’t have married him, my life would have taken an entirely different course, and I wouldn’t be the person I am now. I wouldn’t have met and married my “new” husband and been as happy with him. I wouldn’t have made the friends I did, nor had the experiences I did. I might not have met the woman responsible for me becoming an image consultant and personal stylist, which has been the most satisfying job ever.

Was it the right decision to give up work when I was so ill two years ago? At the time it seemed the only possible course of action, whereas now I am well again, I miss it like an amputated limb. A huge part of my identity has disappeared.

A good decision was to go back to the mental health team when I did. If I had chosen instead to stick it out, I wouldn’t have met my excellent psychiatrist or now be on the drugs which keep me stable.

Over the course of your life, you will have made many decisions. Which ones do you think have contributed to your happiness or improved mental health, and which ones have had a negative effect?

Mary

A Moodscope member