Black, white and the gray points in between

A friend of mine today was explaining to me that life was actually quite simple. Really?
He assures me that all decisions and situations in life come down to black and white paradigms, so life actually is quite easy to navigate. Really?
I suppose it is true: if you can see the world in a simplified black and white dichotomous paradigm, it would be easy to cruise through life. You're wrong, I'm right. This is bad, that is good. This stays, that goes. I'm in, you're out. Easy.
However, the overwhelming evidence demonstrates to me that life, decisions, circumstances, situations, etc are rarely as easy as a binary choice. There are always shades on the gray-scale that mitigate and modify choice. Being able to distill the liquor of life to two options is something that proves elusive to me.
Take something that I do for a living: teen pregnancy. Sure, getting pregnant out of wedlock, when you're certainly not mature or capable of taking care of a child is incredibly unfair to the coming child. On the other hand, terminating the pregnancy because that would be the more convenient option is also seen as a 'bad choice'. On the other hand (the third hand), the option of giving up one's child for adoption, though seen as a 'solution' by some can leave the mother with scars of guilt and regret for years to come. On the other, other hand (the fourth hand), leaving the child to be raised alone by a mother who is but a child herself is also not ideal. Lots of gray all over the place on that one. Sure, you can be black and white, condemn the girl (but noooo, never the boy) for getting pregnant and telling her she should have had the moral fortitude (or at least the organizational ability to get on reliable contraception) to resist, but that doesn't change the fact that life happens anyways.
Sometimes I think black and white thinkers make it so, as it simplifies things greatly, and one doesn't have to take into account individual factors. I would love to think in black and white; I could have knee-jerk or rote answers to everything, and never have to consider other issues that would be game-changers. I suppose that could have me labelled as wishy-washy, or indecisive, but I can't imagine anyone accusing me of that...