Making Decisions Takes Time - Perhaps More than You thought

I used to use a metaphor of hair growing to make a point regarding decision making and not making a decision. It made the hackneyed point that not making a decision is also making a decision and it went like this - if I'm debating whether or not to cut my hair, I am making a decision not to cut it. The fact is that it grows all the time, even when you are not decided on whether or not to cut it. Even if the deliberation is not very long, it is sometime neglected (and many times noticed) that the act of making a decision is itself a decision (or it isn't - it maybe an outcome of a non-decision of the same sort) that has implications on the possible alternatives and outcomes, and thus on the decision itself.
The years passed by and my metaphors did not develop much. Though, uninterestingly enough they now refer to facial hair (the process is concomitant to the one dubbed 'receding hairline' but that will be dealt with on a different post, if at all). The current one refers to growing a beard (a few rightfully obscured ones revolve around the growing a mustache) and asks a similar question about the debate whether to grow a beard or not. We have already agreed that it grows even while I am debating whether or not to grow it and that there is no way of avoiding the decision by deliberating since choosing to deliberate is a decision regarding the beard as well. But now I want to delve deeper into the deliberation and ask what it is to decide to have a beard? given that there are two alternatives, growing a beard and not growing a beard, I ask myself all sorts of questions regarding those two alternatives: which of them, I think, looks better? What kind of a person I feel that I am, bearded or clean-shaved? What do people think of me when they see me with and without a beard?
But those questions deal with those two alternatives as permanent statuses of existence. which they obviously aren't. If while I debate the beard grows (which makes me a debating bearded creature unless I shave it regularly to be a debating shaving guy) it is obvious that even after I decide, say, not to grow it - it will still grow. And so, if I slack for a while or lose my ability to use both arms in coordination, it will grow in spite of my decision. You can say of a fellow 'he's a bearded fellow' for you have always seen him bearded. He may have sworn never to shave or belong to a sect that forbids the cutting of hair. Yet he may be abducted by a hair-cutting rival faction which will cut his hair or repudiate his previous beliefs. Any bearded person is a clean-shaved person in potential. Only after the death of a man (in case, not of most women) can one truthfully say 'he has never-ever shaved'.
This makes my debate much more interesting for it opens up many other alternatives: I can grow a beard in the winter and shave in the summer; I can shave every two months and just let it become a beard when I shave it. I can grow a beard for ten years and then shave it to be an ex-bearded man. Here I don't deal with the option to shave it half way, grow other forms of facial hair etc. I try only to deal with two possible statuses: being bearded and not being bearded. The dimension of time does not only open up a new scope of options, it inevitably eliminates the two previous alternatives I considered analytically while deliberating. I cannot be a bearded man - in fact I will only be that in retrospect after my death - I can only be bearded man for now.
I still haven't decided if I want to be a bearded person in principle or not, so I decided to grow a beard. As far as I'm concerned this is as legitimate as shaving for an undecided. The temporal aspect of decision making, however, seems to me to deserve greater attention. Transforming a decision from a singular point in time into a stretch on the continuum of time bares on decision making theory. Indeed, we often neglect to take the flow of time seriously when making decisions and reflecting on the world. The fact that an alternative exists, does not promise that it will continue to exist. It is now an option but every now-option is potentially a non-option tomorrow. Materializing option A now is nothing like postponing it and materializing what seems to be a similar option tomorrow. This adds many options to the table when we are making decisions, in fact - perhaps too many.