The Decisions Project

From Tucson to Key West, Halifax to Omaha, Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and interviewed people about the hardest decisions they had ever made. After three months and fifteen thousand miles, two hundred and twenty people had shared their hardest decisions on tape.

Hardest decisions are different than biggest decisions. Though they they occasionally overlap, hardest decisions reveal more about who we are. They catch us at moments that demand reflection, when we surprise ourselves by asserting deeply held beliefs or uncovering previously-hidden flaws.

All the interviewees bravely open windows onto personal moments of their lives, their stories revealing a constellation of different worlds, moralities, and ways of conceptualizing the decision-making process. If there is a common theme among them, it is a fundamental one: these are stories told by real people, shaded by all of their biases and idiosyncrasies. While their circumstances range from the painful to the surreal, their decisions are all ways of navigating our world.

We drive next to these people on the freeway, work with them at the office, and refuse to give them change when they panhandle. We vote with them. We vote against them. They are our lovers, friends, and enemies. Their stories whirl around us every day, a maelstrom of life that we rarely notice. Yet, if we knew their stories, our empathy might be more sincere, our understanding deeper. Stories make us human or, at least, they make us harder to dehumanize.

This is easy to know but difficult to feel. All of the interviewees shared their decisions because, on some level, they are challenging us to empathize with people we may disagree with and even dislike—to viscerally feel our common humanity rather than celebrate it to death with empty platitudes. Hide full description

From Tucson to Key West, Halifax to Omaha, Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and interviewed people about the hardest decisions they had ever made. After three months and fifteen thousand miles, two hundred and twenty people had shared their hardest decisions on tape.Hardest decisions are different than biggest decisions. Though they they occasionally overlap, hardest decisions reveal more about who we are. They catch us at moments that demand reflection, when we surprise ourselves by asserting deeply held beliefs or uncovering previously-hidden flaws. All the interviewees bravely open windows onto personal moments of their lives, their stories revealing a constellation of different worlds, moralities, and ways of conceptualizing the decision-making process. ... Show full description