In this week’s Ted Talk, Ruth Chang discusses hard choices. Soon after finishing Harvard Law School, Dr. Chang regretted her decision and switched paths. She received her doctorate in philosophy at Oxford University, and is now a professor at Rutgers focused on choice, freedom, value and action.

For Dr. Chang, “understanding hard choices uncovers a hidden power each of us possesses.” It would seem that the full use of that power is vital when dealing with divorce.

In any easy choice, one alternative is better than the other. In a hard choice, one alternative is better in some ways, the other alternative is better in other ways, and neither is better than the other overall.

“We also shouldn’t think that hard choices are hard because we are stupid.” Choosing after college between law school and philosophy, Dr. Chang remembers thinking:

If only I knew what my life in each career would be like. If only God or Netflix would send me a DVD of my two possible future careers, I’d be set. I’d compare them side by side, I’d see that one was better, and the choice would be easy.

At the time, Dr. Chang “did what many of us do in hard choices: I took the safest option.” But she learned being a lawyer was not who she was. It’s a mistake to think that in hard choices, one alternative really is better than the other, but we’re too stupid to know which, and since we don’t know which, we might as well take the least risky option.” Even with full information, a choice can still be hard.

For Dr. Chang, making hard choices may best be solved by our  “normative powers,” our “power to create reasons.” You create the reasons to pursue your choices.

We get to exercise our normative power, the power to create reasons for yourself, to make yourself into the kind of person for whom [your decision is the right choice].

Making the hard choice is not dictated by reasons given to us. “Rather, it’s supported by reasons created by us. . . . You might say that we become the authors of our own lives.”

In almost all instances, making the decision to end a marriage is a hard choice. But then making the decision what to do when your spouse tells you, “I want a divorce” is a hard choice as well. You are not handed the DVDs of your alternative lives if you stay married or get divorced; of the alternatives of seeking to win the spouse back, or get revenge, or move on.Continue Reading Divorce: Hard Choices