Struggling with an important decision?
Don’t bother.
I’m the first person to admit to my many failings as a man. High on my list of pet hates about myself is being a ditherer.
I’m paralysed by choice. I hate choices. I want to know the right answer, the right path to go down. I don’t want to have to work it out. And I don’t want to feel responsible for getting it wrong.
I’m always keen to try and improve myself and for this particular personal problem, I’ve called on some of history’s most notable scientists for help.
Watson and Crick
I know where I get this from. It’s in my DNA. I get it from my mother. My mum was unsurpassed at talking herself out of things. When presented with a great idea, her ability to utterly destroy it with counter-arguments, obstacles and problems was the stuff of legend.
And I’m just the same. It’s in my genes. I go through exactly the same process my mum used to go through, and I can rip apart a good idea in minutes.
Fair enough. I know why I have this problem. What do I do about it?
Enter my next celebrity therapist.
Freud
The First Law of Decision MakingÂ
Follow your instincts, it’s what they’re there for
To paraphrase Freud, by all means think about the little decisions in life, but for anything important follow your instincts.
Our instincts have evolved over countless generations to guide our survival and success. Whilst they aren’t tuned to the nuances of modern life, the pace of change of which is way beyond that of evolution, they are none the less the most sophisticated, powerful and innate tool at our disposal for processing pros and cons and making a decision.
But isn’t this what most of us do anyway? How often in life do we make choices that go against what our guts are telling us to do? Though that never stops us pissing away countless hours agonising over them.
If your instincts are telling you to do something, they’re almost certainly right so you might as well just follow them and not worry about it. But what if your instincts aren’t giving you a clear steer?
My next celebrity therapist may be able to help.
Newton
The Second Law of Decision Making:
Every argument has an equal and opposite counter-argument
Just as every action has an equal and opposite reaction, to paraphrase Isaac Newton’s third law of motion, so it seems every argument has an equal and opposite counter-argument.
This is, of course, somewhat untrue in its broadest sense. If I were considering whether I should set fire to myself or not the arguments are unlikely to come out evenly stacked. But it seems this way because the choices we have to think about are only those where the arguments are evenly balanced. Self-immolation can be dismissed in a heartbeat. It doesn’t require analysis. A career choice, relationship choice or lifestyle choice isn’t necessarily so clear-cut.
This comes back to Freud’s point but on the smaller scale. Our instincts are enough for all but the least obvious choices. If your instincts can’t make a call, then the arguments are likely to come out evenly balanced or only very slightly weighted one way or the other.
The chances of your brain succeeding where your instincts fail are remote to say the least.
But it could be worth poring over the pros and cons to find that slight weighting one way or the other, couldn’t it?
Our next guest says no.
Einstein
The Third Law of Decision Making
The act of making a choice changes the choices
Quantum theory tells us that the act of observing reality changes reality. The act of making a choice also changes reality, it changes your life in such a way that you can no longer meaningfully draw any conclusions about what might have happened if you had taken the other option. Making a choice changes the choices.
Take a trivial example. I decide between two jobs, one close to home and one with a long commute. I take the latter but find I hate the commute.
I might regret my choice, but the fact that I took that choice changed what I did with my workdays. If I had taken the job closer to home I could have been run over by a bus while strolling to work. I haven’t been in the same places or doing the same things. Life has changed in an infinite number of small ways and any conclusions about the path I didn’t take are totally meaningless.
Bernoulli
Freud tells us to trust our instincts. If that’s not enough Newton tells us that our arguments will all have equal and opposite counter-arguments so there isn’t much point trying to work them out anyway. Furthermore Einstein tells us that the very act of picking a hole kinda fills-in the others anyway, so any regrets about the paths we didn’t choose are pointless and meaningless.
Which brings me to tonight’s final guests. Bernoulli and his random coin toss, joined at the last minute by Mr Johnnie Walker. Flip a coin and have a drink. It’s the only sensible way. Science says so.