Decisions

It is 10am in the morning. After years of education, extensive training and months of experience, I go ahead to undertake another trading deal. The deal is worth $10million. If things go as rightly as I have projected and if the market reacts as well as the trend suggests, then, well, I am bound to make a profit of $40million by 10pm tonight. The party's on. I am almost there. 

9:59pm, the market crashes. My decision goes not as well as I had projected. I end up making a loss of $20million instead. 

With a pistol in my hand and almost on the verge of suicide, I wonder. How could I go wrong? Everybody is surprised. Astounded. Taken aback. And then, I pause. I realize, they are not surprised, astounded at me. They are not looking at me and how I could go wrong. They are not criticizing me. They are pitying me. They are not doubting my decision making skills. They are wondering at the market and its ability to churn things around in the spur of the moment. For, at 10am, I had made the decision with the best of my knowledge, skills and information available. How could I then, at 10pm, blame myself for that decision?

We all make decisions everyday. Sometimes, we think, ponder, compare, analyse and then decide. Sometimes, we just decide and then repeat the analysis process just to fend ourselves. Each decision comes with its own set of costs and benefits. From picking up the branded jeans over the counter to choosing between the two drinks from the menu. Each decision, every single time, has a price attached to it. We give something in order to have something. What we give is part of our brains, analysis, time and the cost of not choosing the other thing. What we get is a box of consequences of that decision.

The clearest way of defining it perhaps is buying a Big Mac combo from McDonalds. We get a with-cheese big mac with fries and a regular drink. In return, we pay Rs.350. In exchange, we get the apparent as well as the psychological satisfaction of consuming it. 

But imagine, standing at the counter and not deciding. The store may close. The attendant at the counter may get agitated;  request or even forcefully shun you away to let others in the queue get their chance. Your family, your friends may also get irritated at you for taking time and just standing there. Now imagine, standing at the McDonalds counter for 3years, with Rs. 350, you might be able to afford a Big Mac today; but not forever. 

Same is the case with all the decisions we take. They say, all decisions are not as simple as treating yourself to fast food. Not all decisions come with a tag of mere Rs 350. There are gazillion other factors involved. The bigger the set of consequences and the fatter the size of decision, the heavier the risk. The higher the human tendency of complicating it. 

Even till date, if I stumble across a  mathematics question which looks tricky and complicated, I automatically start devising complicated solutions. We all love complicating things and answers for questions that just seem complicated. And perhaps, that is the trick. Like one big cute examiner, even God poses us with life dilemmas and questions that seem apparently tricky. Helpless in the hands of our stupid addiction of complication, we immediately delve into looking for complicated answers. 

Often a times, we get so bogged down with looking for curved roads and twisted solutions, that we end up entangling ourselves in the process of deciding. The heavy weight of our illusions and complications numb us. Slow us. And eventually, robs of our ability to even decide. And then, the worse happens. We lose ourselves and stop deciding. We chicken out. 

We forget that deciding is imperative to living. There is no right or wrong decision. It is in the context of situations. Putting it in comprehensible way, there are two degrees of wrong decisions. One, when we decide without the information at hand.

Two, when we choose not to decide. Imagine, if we all stop driving for the fear of going wrong with our judgements. Imagine, if all pilots refuse to takeoff because of the threat of air accidents. Imagine, if we all stop breathing for the fear of our airwaves blocking the next moment. Imagine, if we all stop buying smart phones, joining jobs in always the hopes of getting a better one in the near future. Imagine, if we all stop striking any deal in life, in the hopes of something bigger, better. 

We die not when we don't get what we expected out of the decisions. We die only when we stop deciding. 

Decision is a tool. A result of thorough analysis of available information. The information available at any given moment is constant and perfect, yet with the ticking of each second, its changing. 

The perfect decision is the precision with which we can determine the reason for choosing, the options and the available information related to it. With evolving paradigms of ourselves and others, the decision may not seem perfect after sometime, to ourselves or even to others. But then again, the key is to remember, that it was in the strongest context of the situation. 

Successful is the person who curbs down his need to complicate things, makes the decision, courageously takes up the accountability for it, tries his best to sustain the decision's consequences and does not whine to the world for it. It is easy to let others decide and later blame them. 

The key is to not let the brains cloud the rationality with complications. 

Listing down complications attached to absolutely any decision is the start. If our list is greater than 4points, than know it for sure that either we are not ready to decide or we're over complicating things to eventually hand over the decision making responsibility to somebody else. 

For no problem in life can extend a four point description in life. 

For deciding and owning up the decision is the only way to live and move on.