The Responsibility Of Making Decisions

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice - Neil Peart

Most real-world decisions are made with incomplete information.

The paradox is that waiting too long for "perfect" information can be worse than making a timely decision with imperfect information.

Sometimes, analysis paralysis is more costly than making a "good enough" choice.

I think one of life's interesting challenges is we hardly have the luxury of complete information when making choices, especially when it comes to life-altering decisions.

In our daily lives, we push through the proverbial fog, making decisions based on fragments of understanding, intuition, and sometimes just gut feeling.

Of course, many of these decisions are mundane, so the consequences may be minimal.

But life-altering decisions carry weight that echoes through years or even decades of our lives.

The natural state of decision-making is embedded with uncertainty.

Initially, what many find hard to accept is that choosing not to make a decision is still making one. In that, whenever we postpone or avoid deciding, we're rather passively choosing to let circumstances decide for us.

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This insight, captured by the phrase above from Neil Peart, shows the inescapable nature of choice. In my view, there is no neutral ground, or an "either this or that" situation, thanks to the nuance aspect of life.

Invisible Burdens

In our modern age, it's more understandable that decisions don't exist in a vacuum either. Arguably, nothing does.

But with decisions, a web of social influences also have a say particularly in the "why" of decision-making.

Since they operate beyond our conscious awareness, it isn't too hard for me to look back on past decisions I've made and source where the influence of that decision came from.

It's mostly in this bucket of family patterns, cultural norms, peer pressure, and professional environments. Sometimes we make decisions to align with these influences, or simply to rebel against them.

I used to be hardheaded against cultural norms, only to realize later that many of my rebellious decisions were themselves reactions to those very norms rather than truly independent choices.

Understanding these social dynamics is necessary because they more often than not form the invisible 'why' behind our decisions.

Dead Time

Time adds another layer of complexity to this decision-making landscape, particularly everything that's after the "why" of it. In the real world, choices come with deadlines, explicit or implicit.

The good aspect with that is having a clarifying force that compels you to cut through the noise and try focusing on what truly matters.

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At the same time, you'll also have to confront the reality that perfect timing rarely comes at the right time, if ever.

However, how many well-reasoned decisions can you make when life's coming at you fast through multiple directions?

Besides, it's also a psychological burden to carry the weight of perpetual indecision, the anxiety and potential regret that comes with watching opportunities slip away on the premise of waiting for a certainty that may never come.

For myself, I much prefer to live with the consequences of a decision made with conviction than the anxiety of living things undecided. The latter will be very taxing on my mental state.


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