Decisions

What makes a decision a good one? What makes it a bad one? I often notice that there are not good or bad decisions, instead we should ask ourself: What are good metrics for us to decided that something was or wasn’t well resolute?

An interesting insight to this question is that our decisions often are not made in the moment of true, but afterwards. You only know that something is worth the effort until you actually went through with it. Everything else is just speculation.

I think this has several reason, one strong aspect is decision fatigue, but also to the problem that we do not have the time to really process all the information necessary to make good conclusion, for the reason that we’re lacking information or because we’re overflown by them. And because of this we’re confronted with an incomplete view of what is to expected on the paths ahead of us.

Decision fatigue is the moment when our mental capacity is exhausted and yet need to come to an conclusion. It is the point where we resort to corner cutting. Trying to find ways to decided something to the most closed thing. However this often leads to bad choices.

When you think about this it we have an infinite complex universe in front of us and our brain needs to make the ‘right’ choice. But what might be seen as the correct answer for the brain is often rather short-term. Our brain act very short-sided in moment of scarcity by trying to feel good now instead of considering the long-term effects.

That’s why habits are so important: They reflect a path of decision already made and removes strain from our brain. It is the reason why we bear to things we already know, Resorting to habits (even the bad one) already learning, This are things that make the future more certain for us.

That’s why reflection is important, it helps us to introspecting decisions made and ask with more time at our hand: Was this good? Did it feel well?

so far,
akendo