Is it normal to be extremely indecisive?
Let me give an example of my problem. I was playing chess the other day, I was White and my opponent was Black. We used a chess clock, both of us having 10 minutes for the game. I looked at the board in the starting position and began thinking of openings. Of course the first I thought of was e4, the most natural first move. My opponent would almost certainly respond with either e5 or c5, an Open Game or the Sicilian Defense, and what would I do then? Well, if she played e5, I would respond with Nf3 for the King's Knight Opening, not caring much for the King's Gambit and the other continuations of the King's Pawn Game, to which she would likely respond Nc6. Then I had another hard decision were that to occur, whether to play Bb5 for the Ruy Lopez or Bc4 for the Italian Game. The Ruy Lopez gives a better long-term advantage but the Italian Game has its positional advantages too. I decided to put thinking about that line on hold and wondered what would happen if Black's first move was c5. I knew my opponent played the Sicilian Defense a lot and would probably do better than me with that line. I couldn't take that risk, so I stopped thinking about e4 entirely. What about 1. d4? The Queen's Pawn Game line I had the most experience with was the gambit accepted, so I would have to be on my toes if she played the popular Slav Defense. Granted, the Slav Defense's next couple of moves were natural enough. I could hold my ground with that opening, but I had to consider other options. I had done well a few times with Nf3 as a response to d5, which can transpose into other opening lines. That move was flexible enough, but what would be best against this opponent? 1. Nf3 never even crossed my mind, because I wanted to put pressure on Black right off the bat. Maybe I could have played c4, but instead I started thinking about openings that were less popular but still viable. That would challenge my opponent's knowledge of opening theory. I considered 1. b3, Larsen's Opening, followed by a fianchetto. Not a bad idea, what else was there? I could also fianchetto after Benko's Opening, 1. g3. But which would I play? Again, I was paralyzed by two similar choices. My mind wandered to other options. Maybe Grob's Attack, but did that leave me too vulnerable? Maybe the Dunst Opening, but was blocking the c-pawn too much of a disadvantage? I decided maybe I should go past even those moves and start thinking about the really unorthodox openings, aka the bad ones. Maybe I would surprise my opponent and get a psychological advantage. I started thinking of how I could play them. 1. f3, the Barnes Opening, famous for its badness. Na3, the Durkin Opening, an odd knight development. a4, the Ware Opening, which attacks squares that aren't actually important in the early game. Maybe if I surprised her with one of these bad moves and played well enough after, I could-
My ten minutes were up. She won on time and I was still staring at the starting position. She was pissed off. I hadn't made a single move because there were too many choices and I couldn't commit. It's good I talked her out of this being a game of strip chess. This affects every single part of my life. It takes a long time for me to decide what to eat because there's so many different kinds of food. I have to do hours of research and thinking before I can decide on a product to buy, even for unimportant things. Is my life hopeless?