Decisions are something we encounter absolutely every day. Sometimes, decisions are truly small and relatively insignificant: “Do you want coffee with warm milk or cold?”, sometimes a bit more significant: “Are we going on vacation to Istria or Dalmatia? Which sport are we going to enroll our child in?” and sometimes they are those life decisions: “Do I want to stay at my current job or quit and look for a new one? Which college do I want to enroll in?”. The only thing that seems to be a constant in our lives is making decisions.
Choice or paralysis?
Life is a matter of choice, right? But what happens when continuous choosing and deciding becomes a source of stress? There is a certain paradigm in modern society, such as ours: to maximize freedom, we increase the possibility of choice; by increasing the possible choices, we get more freedom. With more freedom, we improve the well-being of society. However, there is also another side to the high possibility of choice and the constant making of decisions between them.
One of them is paralysis. From too much choice, we paralyze our decision-making, we postpone the decision, we spend an incredible amount of time weighing the potential benefits and drawbacks, and sometimes, in the end, we let others make the decision for us. How many of us went to pension insurance and chose which pension pillar we wanted?
Some of the other consequences of a large selection are frequent dissatisfaction with the decision made because there is a wide range of similarly desirable options that we perhaps should have chosen. It is simple for us to imagine the potential benefits of the other unchosen options. Also, once we make a decision, the consequence is a rise in expectations from the chosen option. Namely, with all that possible choice, once we have chosen, we put pressure on ourselves that this MUST be the right decision.
After a painstaking process of choosing a new family car model, the basic and additional equipment package, and the method of financing, this now MUST be the right decision. “And what if it isn’t?” “What if we could have gotten even more for our money from another manufacturer?” What when our reason and intellect, which we rely on so much, fail us? Is there even a RIGHT decision, a best option?
Good or wrong decision
Currently, we have many questions and potential challenges, and very few tips. Of course, one of our tips is not returning to reducing choice, returning to some times that are behind us. Quite the opposite.
The mistakes we often make is thinking that one option, according to its characteristics (advantages and disadvantages), must be better than the other, but that doesn’t have to be the case at all. Life-changing, big decisions, such as the decision to choose a college, choosing between jobs, or even a partner with whom we intend to enter into marriage, cannot be expressed in numbers and the world of scientific assessment. But what when we cannot put the options on a scale and make the right decision in this way?
Try to imagine the world of decision-making as a world of choosing between values, rather than metric characteristics that can be weighed. What when we choose between values that are similar, but different in their type? The world of easy decisions traps us in a world of reasons, and choosing between difficult decisions forces us to stand for values, attitudes that we want to characterize us.
Values that we call life values and that then become part of us, ourselves. Values that help us become who we are or want to be, creators of our lives.
There is not always a best alternative, and often we will not find that alternative outside, in simple reasons. The answer to a difficult decision needs to be searched for within ourselves, to peer inside and ask ourselves what it is that I am deciding on? Which values am I choosing? Which values do I want to characterize me and build me as a person?
