I have been trying to sort out my vacation plans for quite some time now. You’d think it’d be easy given that the city that’s on the top of my list of potential holiday destinations has been on the top of my list for a couple of months now. Easy, right? If I’m that keen on it, then I should just book my ticket and go.

Wrong. While that place has been on my top ten places I’d love to go which I haven’t been to just yet for a few years now, the main question that pops up whenever I consider booking a ticket there is: What if I’m wrong?

I’ve always wanted to go there because of my love of music and because it just seems like an incredibly fun and vibrant city to go to. The books and movies can’t all be wrong, after all.

It’s just that this time round, there’s another factor driving my desire to go to that particular place, and it’s just… I don’t know. It’s not a sure thing. In fact, it’s so far from being a sure thing that were it my only reason for going, I wouldn’t even be considering booking that ticket on that long-haul flight.

And honestly, I’m trying to figure out the lowest, minimal probability that it would take for that one thing to be a certainty that would drive me to go, and right now… I guess even a 5% chance that it could happen would be good enough to make me go.

Still, I’m scared. Going all the way there based on a 5% chance that something might happen isn’t exactly the most rational thing in the world. And if it doesn’t happen, I would most definitely feel like one of the world’s greatest fools for being so silly and naive.

I told all of this recently to one of my oldest and best friends; she told me to just go for it, because even if that one thing doesn’t happen, she knows me – and the city – well enough to know that I’ll still have fun. And besides, don’t I want to know for sure whether that one thing could come true? Don't I want to know that I gave it my best shot?

But still, sometimes, it’s just easier and perhaps, even better, to just not do anything to tarnish the memories of something that once was, because it's very possible that the memories, and the subsequent fantasy are far, far better than what the reality could ever conjure up.

It isn’t always better to know than to not know.