This represents the final installment of what I’ll call my "Tyranny of Choice” trilogy. 

In Part One, I lamented the volume and breadth of choices available to us in modern life. In Part Two, I begrudgingly acknowledged – with help from a reader – that wrestling through such decisions produces valuable growth. In both, I pulled back the curtain a bit on a looming decision facing our family – where to send my oldest son to high school.

For Part Three, I’m here today to share what we decided regarding my son’s high school destination and summarize what I learned in the process. I do so in response to the many kind readers who have asked about it and in hopes you can learn something from our imperfect – but ultimately fruitful – journey to a decision.

In one sense, we ended where we began – by committing to the same school district we’ve been at for the past decade. But experientially, it doesn’t feel like we are sticking with an old thing. Because of the freedom we gave ourselves to go a new direction and the diligence with which we pursued other options, choosing the familiar district actually feels like a “fresh” commitment. One lesson here? You don’t always have to physically “leave” a place to evaluate it from a new angle. 

Why did we ultimately land where we did? This is where I might have expected to share a sophisticated rubric I created for each school or the results of a lengthy pros/cons list. That’s typically how I roll. And, in fact, that is how I rolled here, as evidenced by my comically long Evernote of data and analysis.  

But when it came down to it, our final decision felt way more visceral than analytical. I might even call it spiritual. We recognized that, on paper, there were other options that could have checked more boxes for Grady. But despite that reality, none of us could quite shake the feeling that Urbana is where God has planted us and Urbana is where we are called to invest. It’s just “us.”

As I write those words, the thought occurs to me: “How is that helpful for anyone?” I’m not giving you steps to follow, a rubric to implement, or a formula to apply. But maybe that’s the point. When it comes to discernment, analysis has a place. But in the end, I’m convinced all of us make decisions based way more on our feelings and convictions than we do our thoughts and analyses. Or perhaps better put, I think those two dimensions – head and heart – work together more than we realize.

All I know is, in the end, we were left with a sense of what we were supposed to do way more than we were left with an answer to a math problem. My final Evernote entry reads like this:

I'm so thankful to be out of school district purgatory. We know there are challenges ahead. But I'd much rather think through how to make the best of those challenges than live as a perpetual free agent. It feels good to know where we belong. 

Recommendations from My Fellow Travelers

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last newsletter. I think the book club might have legs! If you expressed interest, I’ll be in touch. 

Also, here were some books that got added to my queue based on your responses:

• Halftime by Bob Buford

• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

• Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

• The Situational Leader by Paul Hersey

• Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Carry on fellow travelers, we’ll talk soon.