Deciding without certainty is part of the job

"Doubt is the price of purity" — the line is Sartre's, and for a long time I read it as a logic game. Today I read it as a description of my work.

Whoever decides rarely has certainty. And certainty, when it comes, tends to come late — after the window to decide has already closed. So the real choice is almost never between right and wrong; it's between acting on incomplete information, risking a mistake, or waiting for certainty and paying the price of inaction.

The purity of someone who never errs is the purity of someone who never decides. It's comfortable and it's sterile. Whoever takes on responsibility gives it up: they accept living with doubt, acting anyway, and answering for the result.

What I learned wasn't to eliminate doubt — you can't. It was to live with it without freezing. I gather the best information time allows, decide, and stay alert to correct quickly if reality shows I was wrong. Deciding early and correcting is usually better than deciding late and being right.

Doubt isn't a weakness in someone who decides. It's the price of being on the field instead of watching from the stands.