A hard decision
A hard decision
There is a choice in front of you and both ways cost something. You have listed what each would mean, more than once. The lists have not decided it, and the deciding has become its own weight.
Marcus did not write about how to choose between two goods. He wrote about what a choice is judged by, and it is not the one the lists measure.
Marcus Aurelius
What need is there of suspicious fear, since it is in thy power to inquire what ought to be done? And if thou seest clear, go by this way content, without turning back: but if thou dost not see clear, stop and take the best advisers. But if any other things oppose thee, go on according to thy powers with due consideration, keeping to that which appears to be just. For it is best to reach this object, and if thou dost fail, let thy failure be in attempting this. He who follows reason in all things is both tranquil and active at the same time, and also cheerful and collected.
A procedure, and a short one. Ask what ought to be done. If the answer is clear, go, and do not keep looking back. If it is not clear, stop and ask the best people you know. What the fear of choosing wrong wants is a third option, going over it again alone, and it is the one he leaves out.
Marcus Aurelius
From Plato: But I would make this man a sufficient answer, which is this: Thou sayest not well, if thou thinkest that a man who is good for anything at all ought to compute the hazard of life or death, and should not rather look to this only in all that he does, whether he is doing what is just or unjust, and the works of a good or a bad man.
The criterion, and he borrows it from Plato's Socrates. A person worth anything does not compute the hazard to themselves. They look at one thing only in whatever they do: whether it is just or unjust, the work of a good person or a bad one. A choice weighed on that is often easier than the same choice weighed on outcomes, because outcomes are not yours and this is.
Marcus Aurelius
He often acts unjustly who does not do a certain thing; not only he who does a certain thing.
And a warning about the option that looks safest. Not choosing is a choice, and it can be the unjust one. The person who does nothing has also done something.
One question
Set aside what each way would cost you. Which one is right?
Meditations is quoted from George Long's translation of 1862, which is in the public domain. The passages are chosen by hand, shown as written, and never paraphrased.