disapointing others

So I just got a response back from Texas Tech, after turning down their offer of admission. They were the first ones to offer me admission and an assistantship and I had been talking on the phone and emailing back and forth with an advisor about numerous details. Since I hadn't received a fiscally viable alternative I had started to think and get excited about going to Lubbock. About a week and a half ago I received an assistantship offer for GSU. While GSU is a better choice for me in a number of ways, my decision still wasn't easy becuase, again, fiscally, Texas Tech would be a lot cheaper.

On paper, and even in my mind I am confident I made the right decision, yet it still haunts me that maybe i didn't. It is tough because before there were all these possible tracks and now they have all been abruptly closed - but that is the nature of this sort of thing.

The advisor I had been talking about said something like (Of course, I am disapointed, but I wish you the best of luck). I felt really bad even though there is no real good reason to and I would probably have had the same feeling had i turned down a different school. The root of me feeling bad, was of course "disapointing him" which can be seen as "having a 'not perfect'/good image in his eyes." I also felt tied to Texas Tech because I had been talking to them so much and they are trying so hard to make their program great and court people, I almost wanted to go there just so that I could say thank you and job well done with the admission process....of course, though, this is not how to pick a graduate school (I do wish there was some way I could rate how they handled the admission process - A+).....

Anyways this all comes back to the one thing that seems to be at the root of all my frustration and lack of success - my constant concern with other's perceptions of me....I simply can't handle people having a low opinion of me or people not liking me or respecting me.

This I must meditate on.