A good life is the fruit of a succession of good decisions, especially around love and
work. However, we seldom accord the business of decision-making the kind of careful attention
it requires. When faced with a large decision, we lack rituals and procedures. We typically
procrastinate, lean on the nearest person or rush headlong into an unexamined solution.
Fortunately, decision-making is a skill and – like any other – it can be taught. The
chief enemy of good decisions is a lack of sufficient perspectives on a problem. We should
systematically think through any issue from five distinct angles: through the eyes of – variously
– our Enemy, our Gut, Death, Caution and Courage. As we try out, juggle with
and then synthesise these oblique perspectives, we will feel our sense of possibility expand
– and a tolerable way forward gradually emerge from the present confusion. Enemy Our
enemies have deep insights into us: they know our frailties, they actively want the worst
for us and they’re bringing a desperate, mean intelligence to bear on our case. Thinking
of them helps beautifully to clarify our thoughts. It can be unfeasibly hard to be a true friend
to ourselves, in the way we should be; our minds may well go blank if asked to imagine
what a sweet and well-meaning person might advise us to do next. We’re so much better
at getting into the heads of our bitterest foes. They appreciate our weaknesses and temptations
like no other. We can at last put these characters to constructive use: by doing the very opposite
of what we suspect (probably very correctly) they might propose and say. We will be energised
and focused by the haunting voices of those dispiriting but very telling and mesmerising
judges: those who refuse to believe in us.
In a sense, we know the answer already – or at least one version of it. We call
it gut-instinct and it is there from the moment a dilemma first appears. The Gut is the accumulation
of all the decision-making lessons we’ve ever derived across our lives, revealed unconsciously
at speed. Most of us have become rather good at not listening to the Gut. Probably it got
us into trouble a number of times, maybe pushing us into some crazy moments for which we paid
dear. Now we pride ourselves on being thinking people, who take their time, gather evidence
and make full use of their higher mental powers, as well we should. Nevertheless, we thereby
lose a source of important insight. We should be brave enough to invite our Gut to the decision-making
table, not necessarily in order to follow it but in order to know what it wants, and
then submit its stubborn and impatient certainties to gentle rational cross-examination. Death
The largest, but always easily-forgotten certainty, is that all our decisions are unfolding in
the backdrop of a giant ticking death clock. We should listen to its beat and take its
daunting messages to heart. The thought of Death has a habit of highlighting our responsibilities
to ourselves and of weakening our concern for living according to what is expected of
us by society. It is a terrifying agent of authenticity. Death may lend us a perverse
new sort of confidence to tackle challenges. By frightening us about one enormous thing,
it may make us less scared of the many smaller obstacles in our way. Our lives won’t be
what they could be unless we submit pretty much every choice we face to the arbiter of
eternity and oblivion.
Somewhere around the table at every
decision must be the voice of caution. It wears dowdy clothes and speaks quietly. It
certainly lacks glamour in an age of bravado and bombast. It’s easy to feel that we must
always and invariably jump – because life has to be about giving the new a go. It may
not be. Let’s remember, Caution clears its throat to tell us, that most new businesses
fail, most schemes end in disaster and most relationships merely rehash the themes of
the current unsatisfactory one. Furthermore, there is a huge amount to be lost and there
are many people around us who may get very hurt by our ambitions. The devil one knows
may just have the edge over the many demons one doesn’t quite. Caution does not look
down on the idea of compromise, it recognises that there are, at points, simply no ideal
options for the imperfect beings we ultimately are. Caution has the bravery not always to
rebel against reality. From an early age, we’ve learnt how to follow the rules,
wait in line and do the dutiful, expected things. We can be good boys and girls; it
got us to where we are today. There would have been no other way to learn how to spell,
drive a car or take up a position in the working world. But there can now be a subtle risk
from an opposite direction; the risk of being overly faithful for too long to conventions
that were dreamt up without our particular interests and hopes in mind. At points, we
need vigorously to relearn the art of Courage, to remember that the happiest lives have invariably
had inflection points where people did the slightly unexpected and weird thing, took
a gamble and won. Sometimes, Caution is just weakness and cowardice wrapped up in the cloak
of self-deception. Courage and Caution need to fight this one out, without any presumption of victory on either side.
Any hard descision we have to make will always by deffinition not be perfect.
But with such tinking behind us we have a slightly better chance than usual of opting for the good enough choice.
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