I turned 45 not too long ago and had the urge to write one of those “the great things about getting older” posts.

I have a list of 10 things that are great about being 45 versus, say, 25. Not that 25 was bad—25 was great! I was in my first year of medical school, I had some really great friends (when you spend time in a windowless basement with your friends and a bunch of dead bodies, you tend to bond), was studying subjects that fascinated me, and I was training for my first marathon. Sigh. Those were the days. But I digress.

Number 10 through number 2 are not that important. Here’s the number 1 great thing about being 45: I now know that no decision is ever final. This may not sound like much, but really, it’s very freeing.

I’ve always been a good decision-maker. As a physician, I have made—literally–hundreds of decisions in a day. So making a decision about household chores or choices  is relatively easy. I once walked into a curtain shop and purchased valences for every window in the three-bedroom apartment I had just rented. The woman behind the counter said she’d never seen anyone make the decisions so easily.

“But I checked this place out last week,” I told her. “And I’ve looked at other shops in the area.  I was done scoping, I just needed to buy.”

“Still,” she said, “most people agonize.”

I agonized over many things, but not curtains. Relationships: sure. Career decisions: of course. Expensive purchases: doesn’t everybody?

But now, no matter what decision I make, I know that it is not the end. It is not the final decision. It’s not that I can go back, but I can learn and go on. I will have an opportunity to make another decision further down the road.

I could sell the house I bought.
I could quit the job I just accepted.
I could go back to work if staying home with my son stops feeling right.
I could reach out to the friend I haven’t spoken to in years.

If you think that the decision you are about to make is final, that it will lead you down a path from which you can never turn—of course you will agonize over the decision. This is why adolescents agonize over everything from what they should wear to who they should sit next to. Every decision feels like a life sentence.

As we grow older, make more and more decisions, and watch the results unfold, most of us gain the perspective that we will usually get another chance. It takes some of the pressure off.

And life with a little less pressure is a life with more fun, more joy, and less angst.

Yeah, so far, my 45^th is turning out to be a great year.