Interview With A Friend on Making Decisions (Part IV)

LENTMAN : From my own perspective, I'm beginning to see that I have a problem which stops me from experiencing life on the level that other people experience their lives. I'm not sure how to overcome this.

FRIEND : Can you further describe the problem that stops you from experiencing life on the same level as others?

LENTMAN : Well, there seems to be something about my personality that shuts me down during the decision making process that is not present (or does not seem to be present or is present to a lesser degree) in you and others. It's not just mental but also physical. I get tremendously edgy (my heart beats faster), I get irritable and often depressed. It is a feeling of complete hopelessness. Then I get so caught up in these symptoms that all I want is to not experience them anymore which motivates me to look for the quickest way out. It makes it very difficult to rationally make decisions under those circumstances.

FRIEND : Interesting. I don't think I knew about the physical part that you described. Is this related to the question you posed to me about avoiding disapproval by others?

LENTMAN : Yes. I guess I assumed on some level that other people were somehow able to not feel this way or fight their way through these sensations when confronted with similar situations. I'm starting to see that is not an accurate assessment of reality. What I mean is, I am starting to see that other people do not feel these sensations in the first place.

Switching gears a little, here's something I've been wondering. How do you know what you want? There are decisions I think I want to make but then when I make them they bring me no happiness or worse, lead me to situations where I feel imprisoned. I think sometimes I convince myself that I should make certain decisions but I'm realizing that the reason I thought I should have made the decision was not necessarily because I wanted to but because I thought it was the right thing to do. So I'm really confused about how I even know what I want. I'm pretty good about knowing what I don't want after I get it, but I have difficulty know what I want before I make decisions. Do you have any insight?

FRIEND : I have this problem too. The way I like to make decisions is to experiment with the various options, look at what's out there, try them on for size, and see what seems to feel best. If you have the time, this works well for things like buying a couch. But there are lots of decisions where you don't get to do that... like choosing one wife to be with forever for example. I would have liked to have had thirty girls to choose from, but it's not like that -- you get to say yes or no to just one option. I'm not sure there's any good way to make decisions like that.

Figuring out "what you want" is a different kind of decision, because you don't get any choices really. You have to have some kind of vision of where you want to go I suppose, and you have to know yourself and the kinds of things that make you happy and then you have to be creative with the possibilities. This has not been an area of strength for me either. I've tried to adopt that attitude that you don't have to figure it out perfectly in advance to make improvements. You do need to know what you want to change and have some idea of which direction to go in, but getting it exactly right isn't necessary.

Another thought... What criteria have you used to determine what the "right thing to do" is? Clearly, sometimes we have to do things we may not otherwise do just because it is the right thing, like pick up dog poop for example. Figuring out the "right" choice is not always easy, especially for the big decisions. What are some of your criteria?

LENTMAN : I think I generally consider the right thing to be that which benefits the needs of others.

FRIEND : Which others?

LENTMAN : Anyone who is not me.

FRIEND : This is not always a clear distinction.

Interview With A Friend on Making Decisions (Part III)

LENTMAN : How did you come to realize what your preferences were and what steps did you take to make them happen?

FRIEND : It took some encouragement from [my wife] to start thinking differently. She was the one who pointed out that I spent a lot of time in the woods and seemed to enjoy it, so maybe I should try to get a job that allows me work in the woods. Frankly, that would never have occurred to me. I had been only considering the possibilities that had been presented to me, none of which seemed very appealing. But by getting a different perspective, I was able to consider an alternate set of possibilities. It's making me think of that game Minesweeper where you see only a limited number of squares, and then when you click the right one, you suddenly get to see a whole bunch of other squares.

Once I became exposed to the new possibilities I decided to go ahead and try forestry. It wasn't an easy decision, because I recognized that if I went down that path I was setting a course and perhaps giving up some other path, but I knew something had to happen, and it seemed like the best available option at the time. Once the decision was made, it was a matter of putting in the time and effort to make it happen. It was a multi-year process to make the change, and in some
ways it is still happening.

LENTMAN : So it seems that supportive people definitely make a difference in the decision making process. In a sense, this is an outside influence impacting the decisions you make. Is there some kind of filtration process that you use to determine to whom you listen to make decisions?

FRIEND : Certainly, as I mentioned earlier, the people who are dependent on me (my immediate family) have a very high impact on the process. And I will certainly listen to advice from other people, especially if they know me well and are familiar with the situation. But it's more than just who I listen to when making a decision. At this point in my life, I don't really make big decisions on my own at all. Anything of any consequence ends up being a family decision, so [my wife] and I talk it through and make the decision together.

Interview With A Friend on Making Decisions (Part II)

LENTMAN : I was named after my father and at some point it was impressed upon me that that I had an image and legacy to live up to. Unfortunately I think I interpreted that to mean I had to follow a path that did not make the best use of my talents. But anyway, did your parents impress upon you that you had to live up to some image? It seems significant to me that you initially chose a career in math which was the same career path both of your parents took.

FRIEND : As I said, my parents were very controlling of me during my childhood, and they had a lot of influence over what I did, and few choices were left to me. Choosing math was a combination of this and the fact that I had nothing else that was an obvious choice for me (again, I'm not particularly good at big decisions). My parents thought I should major in math, I was good at math, there was nothing else, so math it was. It wasn't really an image thing though. Mainly my parents just wanted me to get prepared for a safe, secure job, and they thought a mathematics degree would enable me to get a job similar to the ones they had (working for a big corporation). From their perspective It was a familiar and reliable path so they encouraged me to go that way. Since I had no better plan, I went along with it. Eventually, I came to realize that I actually did have preferences of my own and began to pursue them. It took a while though. I sometimes feel envious of people who know what they want to do with their lives from an early age. On the other hand, not knowing what you want to do enables you to explore and look around, and that can be enjoyable if you have the right attitude.

Interview With A Friend on Making Decisions (Part I)

In Lentman's continuing series of interviews with his life long friends he now turns to a particular friend chosen for his seemingly masterful ability to make decisions to shape his life as he sees fit. Enjoy.

LENTMAN : You have always impressed me by your ability to make choices to improve your life even if it brought about the disapproval of others. First of all, is this an accurate description of your state of mind? If not, why not? If so, what do you attribute this to?

FRIEND : I find this to be a really interesting question, and I've been thinking about it quite a bit. The timing of the question is also interesting since we have just gone through the process of deciding as a family whether to relocate. With three kids it will be a big change, and it's challenging to alter the course of so many lives. Still, after much deliberation, we arrived at the conclusion that it is a worthwhile and positive change to make.

I believe that approval and disapproval of other people more-or-less balance out. There will likely be people who won't like the change, but there are also others who will like it. But actually, that doesn't really matter. I'm assuming in your question that the people who disapprove are outside of my immediate family. Obviously, disapproval by my immediate family could not be so easily disregarded. Their happiness and mine are interwoven. They are dependent on me, so I must weigh their concerns. But with regard to those who are not dependent on me, since it is impossible to please everyone, it's probably not worth the trouble of trying. I try to do what's best for my family, and let the chips fall where they may.

Also, if the change we're talking about is one that would truly improve my life as the question states (and presumably the lives of my family), then the people that matter would surely approve. If they were to disapprove of an improvement in my life, then they probably don't care too much about me, so why should I care what they think?

So, what do I attribute this to? I'm not sure. Decisions are hard for me, so I try to simplify them. Considering too many factors would make them even harder. Also, to get a little Freudian, I had very little freedom as a child. As an adult I value my independence and sometimes resent it when I feel like someone is trying to control me. Disapproval may actually spur me on.