Ambiguity, uncertainty, and mind fog lead us into asking questions [see photo]. However we all soon discover that the precision of our questions is very important because they are what lead us to make our most trivial and our most important decisions.
Decisions, decisions, decisions, and more decisions that is what life looks like when we put on our "big boy or big gal" pants. Decisions about shelter, cashflow, health, etc are always with us. So too are decisions about sex, intimacy, belonging, etc. Decisions about who to "hang with" often loom large. Decisions about what part honesty, and truth telling, will play in our lives. Decisions about who to help and why we believe that we must help them as opposed to helping the millions of others who have also fallen on hard times. Indeed there is a never ending stream of decisions flowing towards each and every person on right now.
I taught decision-making theory to an undergrad class for a Semester. The student base was a strange mix of kids fresh out of high school and older adults who were casual participants of life on Campus. Each student was keen to learn the secrets of decision-making theory. And, at that time, I was keen to teach them all those secrets. However... There was one secret that I was especially keen on teaching them. That is the importance of the "non decision". I went to great lengths to stress the importance of the "non decision" in shaping their lives.
I started with the best theories of the time for making a decision about where to eat as a family speeds along a freeway. Because there are so many choices this decision is perceived to be an easy one. And if the decision is to stop at the first half-decent place then there are few dramas even if the service is slow, the food is less than healthy, and the experience is underwhelming. In practice things become a little more tense in the car if the first decision is a "non decision". "Let us just wait and see what choices we have done the highway" is the non decision. This non decision process can produce a living nightmare. The longer the food stop is delayed the more likely the decision process will become complicated and the complexity of this new decision tree may mean that no one is pleased with the eventual outcome. Finally... A decision is taken and the outcome of this choice is perhaps better than the imagined one that could have been made two hours before. But the impact of one, or several, "non decisions" will always dilute the efficacy and efficiency of the final decision.
We all live with the cumulative impact of our "non decisions". But these are often not that transparent to us as we fumble and bumble our way through our lives. Nevertheless, the "non decisions" we make in our relationships with familial, colleagues, lovers, caregivers, etc are a crucial element in how we experience the life we live.
I failed at my job that Semester because I could not get more than a handful of my students to accept the fact that a "non decision" is a valid choice. I could not get them to accept the simple fact that because a "non decision" does not lead to an immediate action that it is nonetheless important. Many of our "non decisions" haunt us because they simmer away in the background of our lives until, in their own special ways, they cause havoc.
Richard.
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