"I have no interest in forecasting the future, only in creating it by acting appropriately in the present."
- Russell Ackoff
I know, the above is a funny quote for a website that features I Ching-Astrology Horoscopes, but wisdom is wisdom.
I know very well what can happen when you pore over countless divinatory readings, trying to make sense of what path the answers seem to be pointing to.
But the problem is: the more noise you create, the less signal; the more dirt, the less clear the water.
The approaches to decision making in this piece are fueled by four ideas:
- 1) Experience Mind is where you're able to take in the most information, with the least amount of bias, and thus, is the ideal decision making state
- 2) We should use whatever tools we have available to us to get to Experience Mind when making a decision
- 3) We should consider the risks and consequences of our decisions the most when they're seemingly irreversible
- 4) We should minimize noise to minimize confusion
We'll expand upon these below.
Experience Mind Decision Making (And How To Get To Experience Mind)
These may be assumptions on my part, but they're assumptions you can test in your own life:
I believe you're less likely to be acting in a biased way if you're in the present (Experience Mind) and not in Commentary Mind (Brad Slingerlend discusses pretty much the same thing here).
When you're not acting out of bias, and you're acting in the present, you're less likely to regret the decisions you make, because you're less likely to be rushed, emotional, or distracted.
When you're in the present, you're taking in more information, because you're less distracted (or not distracted), which helps you make a better decision.
When you're in the present, you can pivot and adapt as you need to as new information comes in through your senses.
If you're making a decision in the present moment, this may be all you need. If you make a mindful decision and it blows up in your face, you're probably more likely to accept that sometimes things just don't shake out in your favor.
To get to Experience Mind, try meditating via my SGBM post, to get a feel for it, or read the Three Minds post, or even choose an Awareness or Mantra Sigil in that post. All of these things are meant to get you back to the present moment (like I mention in the PRPS post).
If it's a reversible decision, it may be best to make it quick, based on the instinctual direction you get from Experience Mind.
But for the decisions that offer you a little more time to make them, while potentially being irreversible, I'd say start by going through the following checklist before making a decision to see if any of these factors are present (list tweaked by me, via Morgan Housel and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini).
The Experience Mind Antagonist Checklist
- Is there:
- Inattention
- Distraction
- Lack of interest
- Poor preparation
- Genuine stupidity
- Timidity
- Braggadocio
- Emotional imbalance
- Ideological prejudices
- Racial prejudices
- Social prejudices
- Chauvinistic/stanning (as in not seeing clearly because of idolization) prejudices
- Aggressive instincts
- Avasive instincts
- Sexual desire/craving
- Incentives
- Tribal instincts or affiliations
- Ignoring or underestimating potential consequences/second-order effects
- Little errors compounding into something huge
- Denial of your own flaws
- Black and white thinking
- Not having more than one acceptable version of the future
- Not remembering "not sure"
- Influenced by those playing a different "game" than you
- Not knowing how you typically respond to stress, or might in the future
- Thinking your information is the full picture
- Misreading what parts of someone else's strategy led to their success
- Sleep deprivation
--
With this in mind, let's run through a few questions that can help you get a handle on potential risk, and bad choices, without taking tons of time.
The Strategic-But-Quick Decision Making Toolkit
For decisions that need to be made quick, try on these three lenses:
What would you tell your best friend to do?
- Make sure you write it out instead of answering in your head. By writing it out, your advice can't be distorted, because it's right there for you to look at
- Through that lens, does it still feel right (or wrong)?
What would need to be true to make deciding to ____ to be a disaster? (Do for each option)
- How many of those things are likely, or already present?
--
As Carl Richards has said (via the aforementioned Morgan Housel, and his great book 'Same As Ever'), "Risk is what's left over after you think you've thought of everything."
There's no perfect decision, and trade-offs are always present, but by being present, reducing or removing impulsivity, and thinking of your decision with some distance and heedfulness, we can do as good as we can do.
But for those of you that like to dabble in divination, let's talk about how to approach divinatory decision making.
Divinatory Decision Making (A Quick Guide)
If you have experience with a particular oracle, like the I Ching, or Tarot (or another card-based oracle) begin by asking yourself:
0) Do you want to know what will happen, or do you want to know what you should do?
00) Is this a forever question, or is there a specific time frame you want to know about?
000) Make sure noise/variability/variations are minimized/eliminated in your plan before you begin (This means: limit the number of questions you ask)
1) What will happen if I decide to ____ (time frame optional - Ex: in March/this year, etc.)
2) What will happen if I don't decide to ____ (time frame optional - Ex: in March/this year, etc.)
If they're unclear:
3A) How can I avoid regrets with deciding to ____ (time frame optional - Ex: in March/this year, etc.)
3B) How can I ensure regrets with deciding to ____ (time frame optional - Ex: in March/this year, etc.)
3C) How can I be lucky when it comes to deciding to ____ (time frame optional - Ex: in March/this year, etc.)
--
I believe that by reducing the questions you ask to a maximum of five is looking out for your future self. The more divinatory threads you add to your non-divinatory decision making process, the faster you'll make your decision, and the more clear the answer will be.
I mentioned with Experience Mind, that an advantage it has over Commentary Mind is that it gives you access to more information. Divination theoretically does the same, but it's an information cloaked in symbolism and metaphor.
It's helpful when you're familiar with your oracle of choice, but too much symbolism and metaphor and your decision making process becomes bloated, slow, and foggy, just like if you consumed a bloat-inducing amount of food.
Some of you will probably not listen to me, but hey, I've been there, too.
Final Thoughts
When I think about bad decisions I've made in life, they've usually been the impulsive, emotional, distracted, or manic ones.
I bet it's the same for most of you reading this.
I hope that with the process, and questions outlined above, we're all able to sidestep future regret, as much as future regret can be avoided. Good luck.