Scleranthus vs Wild Oat
Count the options. Two real ones that you keep swapping between is Scleranthus. None that feel like the thing, however capable you are, is Wild Oat.
We earn a small commission if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you. How this works
Why they get muddled
Both are Bach's uncertainty, both are exhausting, and both are largely invisible because the whole argument happens inside your head. Neither is indecisive in the lazy sense. What differs is whether there is anything on the table to decide between.
The differences
How many options
Scleranthus
Two, both real, both on the table.
Wild Oat
None that feel right, even though you are good at plenty of things.
The timescale
Scleranthus
Days or weeks. The job or the other job, decided nine times.
Wild Oat
Years. Three changes of course, each sensible on paper, none of them it.
What it feels like
Scleranthus
A seesaw. Certain this morning, swapped by lunch, back again by evening.
Wild Oat
Drifting. A restlessness, and a slight envy of people with an obvious calling.
What would settle it
Scleranthus
Landing on one and having it stay landed.
Wild Oat
Something clicking that has not clicked yet.
Which one to pick
Choose Scleranthus if
- There are exactly two things and you have chosen both several times
- Your mood swings the same way, cheerful then flat within an hour
- You have not asked anybody, because the whole argument is internal
Choose Wild Oat if
- You are capable and ambitious and have no idea what to aim at
- You have changed direction more than once and none of it landed
- You start courses
What if both sound right?
Wild Oat and then Scleranthus is a common sequence: the direction finally arrives, and then there are two ways to go about it. Most people find one of these two descriptions is obviously theirs and the other obviously is not, so this is a pair worth choosing between rather than covering.
Common questions
Where does Cerato fit?
Cerato is the third of Bach's decision remedies and it is the one that asks everybody else. If you have an answer and cannot trust it without a second opinion, that is Cerato. Scleranthus never asks, and Wild Oat has nothing yet to ask about.
Which one for a career change?
It depends how far you have got. Two offers on the table and two weeks of swapping between them is Scleranthus. A settled sense that none of the last three jobs was it, and no idea what the next one should be, is Wild Oat.
How long before a decision gets easier?
Give it two weeks, as with any of the 38. Nothing here makes the decision for you, and neither remedy is meant to. What people describe is the internal seesaw quietening enough to act on the first answer instead of the fifth.
Keep narrowing
The pairs closest to this one, if neither of these two turns out to be it.
CeratovsScleranthus
Cerato asks everybody. Scleranthus asks nobody. Both are stuck on a decision, and the difference is whether the argument happens out loud.
Chestnut BudvsClematis
Chestnut Bud repeats and Clematis drifts. If you can see the same mistake three times over in your own history, that is Chestnut Bud. If you keep missing what is happening in front of you, that is Clematis.
ClematisvsHornbeam
Clematis has gone somewhere else. Hornbeam has not gone anywhere, it just cannot begin. If the work looks heavy before you start, that is Hornbeam. If you started and then vanished, that is Clematis.
ClematisvsHoneysuckle
Both are somewhere other than here. Clematis has drifted into an imagined future. Honeysuckle is living in a remembered past.
Still not sure?
Read both profiles in full, or start from the feeling and let the quiz narrow it for you.