Making Decisions

I have a hard time making decisions. Interestingly enough, going on a field study to India somehow didn't seem like a tough decision to make. Sometime last year, Julia and I walked by a booth on campus advertising BYU's field study program. We talked briefly with the person at the booth and found out it would be something we could do together even as a married couple. We went to the informational meeting and pretty soon we found ourselves making plans to go on a field study to India.

For some reason it often seems like these big decisions are easier to make than the little ones. Now that we've chosen to go to India, there have been smaller decisions to make along the way such as when to go, what our projects will be, and how to prepare. The latter of these has been the most difficult for me just recently as I have been choosing what classes to take this semester. I am a film major and hope to be a writer and/or editor one day, so naturally I have been taking writing and editing classes. However, with our decision to go to India, the obvious film project was to make a documentary, something I'm definitely not opposed to, but also not prepared for. So I scrambled this semester, dropping my previously chosen classes to make room for documentary classes. However the toughest decision I had to make came over the past few days:

When applying for winter courses I signed up for both a Tibetan class and a Hindi class since my documentary will involve both Tibetans and Indians. However, I was soon after accepted to a writing class that I had been hoping to take for the past year and a half. The only problem was that this class took place at the same time as my Hindi class. I remained excited for the writing class for at least a week, but at some point I began to wonder if the writing class was actually more important than Hindi. Writing is what I would like to do as a possible life-long career, so of course it would be helpful and not just fun, but I'm going to India THIS summer and if I don't learn some Hindi now I may not be as well prepared as I would have hoped.

I wrestled the idea back and forth in my mind for days. Julia helped me think things over and I contacted several people with experience in the field to get their opinions. When it came down to it I just had to pray. I had already been praying, but I just had to pray more. My prayers seemed to point me in the direction of taking the Hindi class, but I didn't feel super strongly either way. I decided to take the writing class and Julia and I would try to learn some Hindi on our own time. I prayed and announced my decision, and then asked if that would be ok. I felt that it would be... but then I realized what I had asked. I changed the question and instead asked what would be best. I no longer felt that the writing class was the answer, but that the best thing to do was take the Hindi class.

I don't expect to be fluent when we go to India, but I want to be prepared; not so much to communicate, but to love and respect the people I'll be working with. If I want people to work with me I first need to show my respect and I feel like one of the best ways to do this is by trying to learn their language. I hope that by doing this I will make my project more about the people and less about myself.

That was long.