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Decision-Making
Challenges of Making Decisions (and Respecting Commitments)
When you struggle with a decision, are you avoiding commitment?
Posted December 30, 2019
We are constantly faced with decisions: little decisions, like what to wear or eat for lunch; big decisions, like where you want to live or who you want to live with; and everything in between. Decision-making can keep you up at night, swallow up precious moments when you know you “should” be working, or enmesh you in the no man’s land of “unfinished business.” Let’s analyze the process to find insights that might help you with your struggle.
First, are you over-invested in external references? Do you rely on numerical guidance when making a choice? Perhaps the number of calories, the time available, the steps you hope (or expect) to take within a day, a target for your bank balance or budget, degrees on a thermometer? These can all be guidelines to help a person make good choices. But what do they overlook?
The number of calories. You may choose to bite into an apple for dessert rather than coating your spoon with Valrhona chocolate mousse—but will you have the same pleasure from the crunch of a Granny Smith as you will have as you slowly roll the silky chocolate substance around in your mouth and feel it slide down your tongue, accompanied by acute sensual appreciation? Will you feel the same satisfaction at allowing two tastes to suffice, recognizing that the experience is not primarily about hunger but more about enjoying capacities for pleasure hardwired into your own senses?
The time available. Who created your timeline anyway? How did you come to allot a precise number of minutes to a designated activity unless it was externally predetermined, like a class, film screening, minutes (or days) preceding a scheduled meeting? Do you decide when to wash your hair based on how it feels on your head, a designated day for washings, or a ritualistic interval, like every three days or perhaps four? What if a transatlantic flight intervenes and you want to “wash the airplane out of your hair”? Can you allow yourself the extra minutes that could feel like a luxury or instead a disruption? When is it okay to override routines or plans that are already on the calendar?
The steps you demand of yourself during a day. With the advent of electronic monitoring devices and professional advisors, you may have decided you want or “should” register a specific number of steps walked during a given period. How far are you determined to go in meeting that goal? What if you don’t feel well and your body craves rest? What if the day before had brought an unexpected demand that led you to exceed your target by double? What if you yearn to have a “quiet” day, one in which your stretched muscles can relax and return to baseline rather than continue to reach towards limits of a mythical flexibility? Can you feel the inflammation?
Targets for your bank account or budget. Making decisions based on monetary calculations can develop discipline that results in a healthy bank balance or cash flow. But what might be the other costs of your commitment? Have you missed an opportunity that is unlikely to come again? Have you sacrificed excellence in a product associated with safety (perhaps car tires, a bike helmet, food that is within its “sell by” date) in the interest of numbers that can be meaningless? Does the sweater you bought lose value when, a few days later, it goes on sale at half price? How good must the concert seat tickets be to be “good enough”? What are you saving for—and what are you sacrificing while you wait to commit?
The thermometer. How easy it can be to find a weather report and use it to guide how you dress during a day! But is that always the best choice? Fifty degrees can seem like early springtime to one hardy soul and a lingering winter to another. Perhaps few numerical markers are as personal as those associated with temperature. What if it rains and we get wet during the day? What if we are chronically cold at baseline? What if the point of wearing gloves is not about warmth but protection from germs on subway railings and escalators? What if the feeling of heat is telling you that you are angry or the cold that you are either fearful or just digesting your food?
And what about decisions that require coordination? Numbers can help us reach and manage agreements with others—i.e., to commit. In exchange-based relationships, a sense of fairness can be key to maintaining balance. Respecting a meeting time or a cost limit for a vacation can signal respect for others who are involved, the message that their time or pocketbook is not any more or less valuable than your own. Ignoring details of a plan made with someone else can be:
- Passive-aggressive behavior, a sign of hostility or silent anger at feeling coerced, manipulated, controlled, or misunderstood.
- Narcissism, a lack of awareness that another person also has wants and needs and that theirs are equally worthy of honor.
- Forgetfulness. When two people are not alike in memory and awareness, an easy solution is to write down plan details, hoping that the more forgetful person can remember to check the terms of agreement.
In the end, there is flexibility, often seen as the mark of a healthy and mature personality. When an external condition like weather or traffic or some crisis changes the context, can you let go of a commitment and make a new plan? When internal conditions such as health or urgency introduce a new element into a conversation, can you accommodate the new information? Can you quickly replace disappointment with the anticipation born of a new perspective? Can you tolerate the ambiguity of the future, i.e., an armful of unknowns?
How do you navigate the waters of separation and re-connection, self-determination and collaboration? We need both, and we need decision-making styles that can accommodate them both—the exhaustion of the moment and the need for stimulation, the committed time for sharing and the impulsive desire to share the unexpected delight? When to be together and when to be apart? Consider your decision-making style and try to expand your options through conscious awareness of your motivations and goals.
Copyright 2019 Roni Beth Tower
