Don’t try to optimise life decisions
Humans live one choice at a time, are you making the right ones?
Whenever we are presented with a choice in our lives, we can choose between one of these frameworks:
1. Optimizing choice for maximum results in the present
2. Optimizing choice for maximum results in the future
(kind of greedy vs. dynamic programming 👀)
Is taking the option that makes us happy now always the best option?
Does overthinking the future help mitigate the side effects of a choice or is it the illusion of control we are seeking?
There are not enough questions on the plate, so I’ll add one more:
Who makes the decisions, our rational mind or our emotional/impulsive mind?
DOES NOT MATTER!
I’m sure you can think of at least one good thing in your life that resulted from a choice you thought was wrong or a small random decision.
Speaking of me, many examples come to mind, the decision to sit in that place on the first day of school, where to eat on that particular day and so on, all small choices that changed my life.
CHAOTIC SYSTEMS ARE UNPREDICTABLE
Roughly, chaotic systems are deterministic systems showing irregular, or even random, behaviour and sensitive dependence to initial conditions small errors in initial conditions lead to totally different solutions
And as you can imagine, life is kind of a chaotic system…
You can keep thinking and rethinking that choice… you can follow your heart and do what makes you happy now, but life will still surprise you.
Conclusion
The main takeaway should not be “don’t think about your choice because it is useless”, but rather “remember that in the end life will remain unpredictable”.