DECISIONS – right, wrong or perhaps maybe

We think it’s only a decision when it’s something big and substantial, like getting married, buy a house, having children, career choices or deciding what reality show to watch (huh?) Besides the silly one, we mark these selections as true decisions, because they might become mighty alternators of our future. But we actually make hundreds of decisions every single day - if not thousands. Sure they are not all big and utterly important, but it’s the same process and for the most part done very fast and furious, no matter if they are right, wrong or perhaps just maybe’s.

Psychologically, decision-making is regarded as the cognitive process (meaning ‘knowing or apprehending by understanding’ – but you knew that, huh?) resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several different possibilities (in some cases: way too many).

Every single decision-making process produces a final choice that may or may not prompt an action; as Bill Shakespeare said: “To do or not to do – that is the decision I must maketh” (he actually never said that, but he should have, don’t you think?)

Decision-making is the process of identifying and choosing alternatives based on the values and/or the preferences of the decision-maker, that’s you and me, founded on sanity and overall life-experience, huh? What I’m concerned, a multitude of our daily decisions seem to be based more so on: hit or miss, good luck and plenty of hope – (Only kidding).

From birth, we quickly learn the art of decision-making. Sure it’s a bit foggy during that first part. Survival-wise, we fully rely on the help, decisions, actions and nourishment from older humans. Our way of communicating back then was running on instincts, necessity, directed by Mother Nature and narrated by massive crying, whining and stinky diapers.

But then we got logical. Using hit or miss we decided that certain things we picked up from the floor tasted good and other things didn’t; we soon acknowledged that boiling Brussel-sprouts stunk up the house, and we decided that they also tasted accordingly – they still do. We stuck a finger into a burning candle, just because it was there (duh!) and soon found that it hurt like Hell. Based on that experience, underlined by the smell of burned flesh, we found that when the option of sticking any part of our body into anything on fire, the decision of ‘to do or not to do’ was easy to make. This one painfully burned onto our brain and just another simple example of how some decisions are made the fast, logical and easy way - using the ‘ouch’ factor. And decision-making never ends; true story.

The multitude of daily decisions consist for the most part of mundane choices we have made again and again; a vast quantity of them are decided more so on auto-pilot, but they are still choices between left or right, up or down, in or out and so forth.

For example, when taking a shower, have you ever thought about the multitude of choices and decisions we must and do make? What body part to wash first, second and in whatever continuing order? Realize that those are all decisions we have to make, one by one. But (hopefully) we have taken enough showers over the years that we have it down to something we do automatically, instinctually and something we never ever have to think about. The funny thing is that if you try to explain to or tell somebody how you shower and in what order you do it, you might not be able to do so without moving your hands, feet and body, as if you were actually in the shower – that’s how automated we have become. Yeah, go ahead, give it a try, with arms and hands immobile by your side; and good luck with that (giggle giggle). I demonstrated this ‘how I shower’ thing at the last fancy dinner-party I was invited to – about 16 years ago… Perhaps I should have kept my clothes on - oh well, there’s an idea for next time…  

     

So, everyday decision-making is like that and most of those decisions are so in-grown concerning how we do them that we do not have to think about it at all. The vast quantities of those decisions are basically right, as in practical, functional and logical. Sure we can always argue other people’s choices (a great pastime if you have nothing else to do), but never-the-less, theirs are also basic and workable decisions - if we agree or not.

Sure we have to make some important decisions early on, seems we are more or less forced to. What to do ‘when we grow up’, what kind of career.  That’s where it gets complicated in a truly unfair way. We have very little to no maturity nor experience when some of those bigger decisions have to be decided upon. 

It would help if we could do a quick morph into the future and perhaps stop at age 50 and take a peek concerning our interests at that time, etc. Then we’d be able to figure out what would be the better career for us – right? Then we head back and can make a more sensible choice. But we are more or less pressured into making such a huge life-altering decision with barely any form of practical life experience. Sure our parents and teachers ‘advise’ us over and over, but it’s unfortunately only later in life that we realize: ‘oh crap, perhaps they were right’. Yep, when we are younger and faced with choices like that, we are of course not listening to advise coming from adults, parents or teachers – duh!!!

Decisions concerning a partnership with another person in marriage or whatever relationship, is another choice we, to some extent, must have a fair amount of luck with – yes, and a bunch of hard and respectful work, garnished with love, etc. How are we to make the ‘till death do us part I do’ with any clear certainty, shared with so many promises and not only to the other person, but more so to ourselves? Last I checked, ‘forever’ is still a very long time. There are so many ways that it might not happen – but luckily, most of us do make good decisions in that respect – I made one three times (oops).

Decisions are all about the future. We constantly decide on stuff for this very moment, a few seconds ahead, hours, days, months and years. I think that overall we are pretty good at this ‘decision-stuff’. Sure we make a few bad calls on the way, but when we bring up the ‘burned finger syndrome’, we’ll soon be back on the right track again.

Predicting is a big part of our decision-making, as we must imagine how something could be, would be, what if and so forth, before we decide. That makes me think of a quote by the world-famous Danish (at least world-famous in Denmark) humorist Storm Petersen; he said: “It is very easy to predict, except about the future”. Now, why didn’t I come up with that…?

Have you ever wondered that if you had decided on a left turn instead of a right turn back then, that today would be very different for you? I think we all have. However interesting that thinking might be, I still believe that it's always better to be decisive than being indecisive - Amen...