Making Hard Choices: It's Not a Science

What career should I choose, should I have children, who to marry, should I live in the city or the country? Choices such as these may pose hard choices for many. What technique or perspective can we utilize to become more competent in making hard choices, and alleviate the agonizing stalemate of paralysis by analysis? Is there an element we fail to factor in that leaves us immobilized in coming to decision? Well. it seems there is. Philosopher Ruth Chang of Oxford University has astutely drilled down to what the underlying and insidious problem is—what it is we're missing, what we're assuming. She feels that we've misunderstood hard choices and the role they play in our lives, that to understand them is to uncover a hidden power we each possess and that we're looking in the wrong place for the answers, mainly out there, rather than from within. With an easy choice, one option is clearly better than the other. With hard choices, one is better in some ways, and the other in better in other ways. One is not better than the other, they are on par—like should I uproot my life to go on to a better job, or stay here with what I'm comfortable with? We think of hard choices as big decisions, but not necessarily so. Chan gives an example of deciding what to have for breakfast as a small choice. Should I have bran with fruit, or a chocolate donut. One is far healthier...the other tastes a hell-of-lot better. One is chocolate donutsnot better than the other overall. Realizing that we can come to decision on these smaller choices, makes the bigger ones look less intimidating and problematic, and we'll be less likely to be tempted rnto take the safest least riskiest option rnas the primary factor for making that rnhard choice. Because there is no best option, is precisely what makes them so difficult to deal with. So,.the first rule when deliberating hard choices is to liberate yourself from the erroneous perception that one is better than the other overall. And as Ruth Chan points out, since they are on par, doesn't mean we now merely flip a coin...that's not a viable method for deciding something important to your life. The choices, after all, do have merit. The conundrum arises when we make the unwitting assumption that values like kindness, justice, what gives us joy, and empathy are comparable to scientific measurement like weight and length. As Chan expresses, "We tend to assume that scientific thinking is key to everything of importance in our world." Values and scientific quantifying are of different worlds. Eloquently, she enlightens us that the world of "what is" is not the same as the world of "ought." Of the three quantifiers of worse, equal or better, we normally use to decide, cannot apply to on par choices. We now need to introduce a fourth new dimension—values—to replace worse, equal or better. This realization now empowers us to create and infuse our very own reasons into the hard choice to be made. Chan posits a scenario where we live in a world where all choices are easy choices, either better or worse, therefore it's all rational, where we would of course pick better over worse. This world of easy choices would enslave us to reasons, period, dictated to us by simple abc logic, a binary robotic-like selection of on or off. Rather when we face hard choices, choices that are on a par, we are then afforded the opportunity to create reasons for our choice, not dictated from outside ourselves, but from within. When choices are on a par, seeking information that would tell you if you're making a mistake is futile because it doesn't exist, giving you the power to create reasons for yourself guided by the human values that mean the most to you, injecting yourself into the option of choice, recognizing and validating reasons from within you, not from out there—this is who I am—I am the author of my life. Chan says there are drifters, that is, people that allow the world to write the story of their life, allowing mechanisms like reward and punishment or fear to guide the drumbeat of their lives, away from their authentic selves. In Ruth Chan's words, "Hard choices are precious opportunities for us to celebrate what is special about the human condition. That the reasons that govern our choices is correct or incorrect sometimes run out,and it is here in the face of hard choices that we have the power to create reasons for ourselves, to become the distinctive people that we are. And that's why hard choices are not a curse,but a Godsend." This unique concept of difficult decision making humanizes the process and our choices, enhancing our freedom as we integrate who we are into our path in life. It is truly empowering to see them as opportunities to be true to ourselves.