Charity ain’t giving people what you wants to give, It’s giving people what they need to get.
-Terry Pratchett, “Hogfather”
Erica_Edelman
Karma: 605
Charity ain’t giving people what you wants to give, It’s giving people what they need to get.
-Terry Pratchett, “Hogfather”
Thanks for this post, Jess! I agree that these are important issues.
Personally, for uncertainty and decision anxiety, there are a couple of ideas that actually do help me stop that cycle when I think of them:
1. Hard decisions are (usually) the least important- “Do I want to eat or do I want to slam my head against that wall?” is an easy decision because there is a big difference between them. “What should I order off this menu?” is a harder decision because they have almost exact expected payoffs (eating delicious food. Anything on the menu should be good) and therefore it doesn’t really matter what you decide.
2. Do I need to optimize this decision? (Answer: probably not.)- Recognizing that trying to optimize most your decisions means you wouldn’t ever actually get anything done, and so deciding to be explicitly okay with just satisficing most your decisions. When I catch myself putting too much effort into a decision that I haven’t explicitly decided to optimize I’ll say out loud something like “This doesn’t actually really matter.” and that tend to help me make a “good enough” decision and move on.
3. I will be happier once I’ve made my decision and locked it in- studies have shown that if you have the ability to change your decision that you will be less satisfied with it than if you were locked in to it. Also making decisions is stressful so leaving them open is going to make you less happy. So picking a dress at a store that doesn’t do returns is better (by which I mean you will both like the dress more and be generally happier) than buying a dress with the idea that you can come back and exchange it for another dress if you decide to later is better than buying both dresses with the thought that you will return the one you like last later.