Decision Making Process

It seems that very little of life is planned, or at least very little goes as planned.

From today's somewhat reflective mood, I've been looking back and thinking about the fact that I never really had control over my own life. It feels like I'm a ship without sail or rudder, just riding the waves to wherever they happen to take me. Some places good, others bad, but most neither good nor bad. But the bad places have been the hardest to escape - I seem to get beached when that happens.

I went to college without much of a clue what I wanted to "be". So when I found myself spending most of my time in the Music department, I just went with the flow to become a music major. When I got to the Student Teaching term as a senior, it no longer seemed such a great choice. What I could have done back then, and in hindsight believe I should have done, was immediately switch majors (I discovered Computer Science as a college senior) and take another year to graduate with the "right" degree.

Did I learn from that experience? Not really. Most key decisions since then could be described as "go with the flow". Job offers came along and I accepted them, sometimes only because I felt flattered that the company wanted to hire me.

Now there is a new choice to be made. Keep doing what I'm doing or take the job?

Arguments for keeping the status quo:
Nobody owns me or my schedule.
Business is pretty good.
There are no office politics.
I'm not yet convinced I really want to work for that specific company.
Pride makes me want to keep the business going.

Arguments for taking the job:
Secure and steady paycheck that's not bad.
Benefits, especially healthcare! (The health insurance costs I pay now are killing me)
I could actually get time off for vacations and holidays.
I'll probably work less hours overall.
Travel will be much less.
I could have a budget for a change with less worry about keeping money back for when business is slow.

This time I hope to make a solid decision based on the real pros and cons of each choice. At the moment I can't predict which way it will go.