Decision Tree of Life
Surely we’ll live to see the day
When all of our problems, they fade away
Have you been making the right decisions for yourself? How do you know?
Life is a sum of all your choices
— Albert Camus
Most times, there’s no objective way of knowing we’ve made the best call, which is what makes big decisions so difficult. At best though, we can be mindful of how it aligns with what we truly want.
My ideal approach to decision making is as follows:
- Classify the problem into a category of my life
- Mentally make a decision tree for each category with the questions that are important to me
- At decision time, follow my ready-made decision tree, making lose adjustments if necessary
- In reflection, reiterate my decision tree based on the new experience
Do I just wanna be an AI??
Why do I do this? Because sometimes life is noisy!! That’s when it’s hardest yet most vital not to let momentary emotions make me lose sight of my guiding principles/goals and ultimately, myself.
Now, the key word was ideal approach as I can’t be prepared for everything (hey, that’s life). If and when I find myself caught up in my emotions, then at the very least I should optimize for a certain one.
For a long time, I thought I should be optimizing for happiness but I’ve realized the pursuit of it felt almost competitive — just as I could gain it, I could in equal likelihood lose it. Happiness fluctuates but peace, on the other hand, feels more constant. It’s completely independent of external circumstances or experiences. That’s what I want to optimize for.
In the book Love is Letting Go of Fear, Dr. Jampolsky shares 12 lessons as foundations for creating that inner peace. Once I looked past how cheesy it seemed, it taught me a lot of interesting lenses from which to view the world. A lot of it stems from recognizing our choices. Perhaps the most profound lesson has been the simple, all encompassing decision tree I’ve derived from it.
I was stuck by this line:
Each day ask yourself the question, “Do I want to experience peace of mind or do I want to experience conflict?”
Maybe it’s an oversimplification, or maybe I’ve just been overcomplicating it. Lately, this is what’s been driving most of my decisions:
I can work with that.