The Decision I Avoided for Three Years

Every stuck person has a spreadsheet. Mental, paper, or excel.

Mine had two tabs. One for reasons to stay in Japan. One for reasons to leave. Columns for finances, career, culture, family, weather, even commute times. I updated it for the better part of three years, and it never once told me what to do.

That is the trap. A man tells himself he is gathering information when he is actually avoiding the decision. The list grows longer. The deadline moves further out. The unknowns on the other side of the door multiply faster than he can research them, because some doors do not open until you walk through them.

I had built a life in Japan over 22 years. Career, language, friendships, a version of myself I was proud of. Leaving meant giving all of it up for something I could not fully see yet. So I did what a lot of men do when a decision is too big to face head on. I procrastinated, and called it due diligence.

No spreadsheet broke the endless loop of planning and decision making. Action did.

The logical case for staying or going was never going to outweigh what I felt in the present, and what I stood to lose by leaving the life I loved. Logic does not beat love. It never has. What finally moved me was something simpler than any column on that spreadsheet: my boys needed opportunities I would not be able to give them if I stayed. That was not a calculation. It was a standard. It was a value. I knew I had to put my boys future aread of what I felt today.

Here is what that decision actually required, broken down into the five things I have leaned on every time I have been stuck since.

1. Return to the standard, not the mood.

For three years I was making the decision based on how I felt about it. Comfortable in Japan, anxious about the U.S., grieving a life I had not even left yet. None of that moved me an inch. What moved me was going back to the standard I had already set for myself as a father, that my sons come first, and asking whether my current choice was honoring it. Our mood changes daily. Our standards should not.

2. Shrink the decision to the next right action.

I was trying to solve the entire unknown at once. Career, finances, schools, culture shock, all of it, before I would allow myself to move. That is not possible, and waiting for it to become possible is how three years disappear. The actual first action was smaller than any of it. Tell my wife I was ready to talk seriously about a date.

3. Separate what you control from what you don't.

I could not control how the U.S. job market would treat a man who had spent two decades building a career overseas. I could not control how hard the adjustment would hit my kids. I could control the decision itself, the effort I put into finding the next opportunity, and how I showed up for my family while we adjusted. Sovereignty means putting your energy where it actually does something.

4. Ask what a disciplined man would do here.

Not what would be easiest. Not what would avoid the most discomfort. When I stopped asking what I wanted and started asking what a disciplined father would do with the information in front of him, the answer stopped being complicated.

The same pattern shows up outside of Japan too. I once had an employee who was not performing, and everyone on the team already knew it. I avoided the conversation for longer than I should have, not because I lacked the information, but because the discussion itself was uncomfortable. The inaction had a real cost. Workload was heavy and we needed full output from every person on the team. Once I asked what a disciplined leader would do with the facts already in front of him, the decision was not complicated anymore. I had the conversation and asked him to leave the company. We lost a minus and gained a plus ten with the replacement, a high performer who works well with the team. The discomfort I had been avoiding turned out to be smaller than the cost of avoiding it.

5. Move first, adjust second.

The first job after we moved back was not the right one. Lower pay, poor fit, real culture shock for all of us. I did not wait for the perfect landing spot before I moved. I moved, felt the ground, and adjusted from there. That first role was not the win. It was the position that let me see clearly enough to take the role that came after it, the one that has been genuinely great.

My sons are thriving. Friends, sports, a life that is fully theirs. My wife started a small Japanese bakery, something that would not exist if we had stayed frozen in the spreadsheet stage forever. None of this was visible three years in. It only became visible after I moved.

Your kids do not learn how to make hard decisions by watching you make them easily. They learn by watching you make them anyway, while scared, without certainty, because the standard mattered more than the comfort.

I gave my sons a father who left the life he loved because they needed something a spreadsheet could never calculate for them. That is the only column that ever mattered.

案ずるより産むが易し (Anzuru yori umu ga yasushi) — worrying about a thing is harder than doing it.

The Japanese use this phrase most often about childbirth, the fear beforehand always outweighing the reality once it arrives. It applies just as well to any decision a man circles for years instead of making. The doing is almost always easier than the dread.

You do not need fifty rows on a spreadsheet to make the decision you have been avoiding. You need the standard you already hold yourself to, the next right action sitting in front of you, and enough discipline to move before every unknown is accounted for.

Whatever you are circling right now, a hard conversation, a career move, a choice for your family, run it through the same five questions. Return to the standard. Shrink it to the next action. Separate what you control from what you don't. Ask what a disciplined man would do. Then move, and adjust once you're already in motion.

The stuck feeling does not end because you found more information. It ends because you finally acted on what you already knew.

- The Day Warrior

Hey everyone, first off—thank you so much for being part of this community and loving the content I create. Your views, likes, and comments mean the world to me and keep me motivated to bring you more of what you enjoy. 

If you want to take your support to the next level and help me continue producing high-quality content, check out my exclusive merchandise in The Day Warrior Online Store!

How to find more content from The Day Warrior: https://thedaywarrior.bio.link (this includes links to my newsletter signup, store, and more).

Like what you read? Stay connected and receive weekly insights to keep you moving forward straight to your inbox.

Hey, this newletter is not all about me. Please consider donating to help our veterans. My dad was an airforce vet, something I am extremely proud of. Please check out Hire Hero USA to support a verteran.

AI is moving faster than any other technology. New models. New tools. New claims. New noise.

Most people feel like they're behind. But the people that don't, aren't smarter. They're just better informed.

The Future Today is a daily briefing for people who want clarity. In one concise email each day, you'll get the most important AI and tech developments, learn why they matter, and what they signal about what's coming next.

Written for operators, builders, leaders, and anyone who wants to sound sharp when AI comes up in the meeting.

One email. Five Minutes. Stay ahead of 99% of the world.

Join Free Today →