Decisions, What You Haven't Been Told About Them

Do you ever feel like your decisions don't matter? Do you sometimes wish that someone, or a force, could make all of the important decisions for you? Do you often find yourself wishing for better luck in your life?

If any of these questions sound familiar to you, have no fear! We can help. We know that feeling all too well and we want to give something back to those who are struggling with it.

This post will answer the question: what are decisions and how do they affect your life? It will also feature an introduction to the school of stoicism, a philosophy that teaches us how we can live more in harmony with nature.

Make no mistake, this post will introduce you to some powerful concepts. They are concepts that have been used by some of the most successful people in history (like Marcus Aurelius and Socrates), but don't be fooled! This isn't some overly complicated theory that is found in dusty books that are locked away in a library somewhere. Instead, we will be covering practical concepts and exercises that you can use immediately to start making better decisions.

Let's get started!

Introduction To Stoicism

The school of stoicism, founded by Zeno of Citium (c. 334-262 BC) was a philosophical movement popular among the ancient Greco-Roman world. It was a school of thought that taught people how to live in accordance with nature. The central concept of this school is that humans should strive to live a life according to reason. This concept is known as virtue, and it is the same as living a "good life." To strive for this goal, stoicism teaches us that we must use reason, logic, and our knowledge of the world around us to make better decisions.

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What Do Decisions Mean?

To understand what decisions are, let's first figure out what a decision is not. A decision is not what we do when we are presented with two options. For example, if you are deciding whether or not to go to the store to buy groceries, your options are either yes or no. There is nothing more than that. If you decide to go, then you are deciding yes and if you decide not to go then you are deciding no.

But this description of decision making isn't complete yet because it leaves out something crucial. There is an additional piece of information that makes a difference in the outcome of your decisions: the reason why you decide either yes or no. Why do you decide yes? Do you like going to the store to buy groceries as a weekly or monthly activity? Are you too lazy to get up and go on your own? Or is there another reason that has nothing to do with enjoyment, laziness, or getting up and going on your own? For example, maybe you have decided that your car broke down and this is why you don't want to go in the store. If so, then the originally stated reason for not going to the store is no longer applicable because now it's something else.

So decisions have at least one additional part: what we choose to call our reason for making a decision. This additional piece of information is called the "meaning," and it is what differentiates decisions from other forms of action. Actions are things that you do and don't specifically state as a reason or goal to do them and as such, they break down into two types: purposeful actions, which are those that have a goal or meaning behind them, and accidental actions. Accidental actions are those things you do for no reason other than the immediate consequences of your behavior (such as the action of hitting someone in anger). Other than this, accidental actions neither aim nor achieve anything.

The point is, when you make decisions on what to say, do or eat, there is more to it than just choosing one option over the other. However, it isn't always obvious whether or not our decisions are purposeful actions or accidental actions. There are many cases where we try to deceive ourselves into believing that our purposeful actions have accidental consequences or that our accidental actions have a purpose behind them. This leads us to act inconsistently with our goals (by mistaking accidents for goals) and thus hinders us from reaching them (1).

Meaning

What are purposeful actions? They are the ones that have a meaning behind them, and more importantly, the meaning is your desire. Meaning is about what you "want" for certain things to happen. The more you want something, the more it means something to you. Decisions are all about making sure that your actions match what you want because if they do, then there is little chance of inconsistency between your decisions and your goals. Decisions therefore concern themselves with the question of what it means to say yes or no in any given situation (2).

Conclusion

Choosing the best possible course of action is crucial to getting closer to your goals and in doing so, helping you achieve what you want. The more meaning you attach to certain decisions, the more that they serve this purpose. Sometimes this means consciously choosing a particular goal over another. Other times it means having no goals in the first place, and making decisions based on a lack of values (such as when we act out of habit). Decisions are all about achieving your goals through consistency between your aims and your actions. This is why they are called "practical wisdom," which means the ability to do what is right in any given situation without fear of contradiction but instead with awareness of its values (3).