Which brand of mayonnaise shall we buy? Which insurance do we need? Which movie should we go see? Every day, we make decisions and, no matter how blessed we are to have choices, sometimes it doesn’t make life any easier. Three experts weigh in on this conundrum in Flow issue 13.
A little piece of the three takes on making decisions:
The Philosopher – Joel Anderson
The hardest part about making a decision is that, by choosing one option, you say farewell to other, equally beautiful, options. It is a loss. And that is tiring. Making a decision involves a degree of mourning over what will never be. You have to continue life in the knowledge that the other options are not going to happen.
The Author – W.L. Tiemeijer
In short, you have a lot more choices to make than ever before. In the end, this makes people feel like if anything goes wrong, it is their fault. In the past, you were ‘struck by misfortune;’ now, you ‘have made the wrong choice.’ All this freedom of choice is putting a lot of pressure on people. The pressure makes it harder for people to make decisions, because tension diminishes your cognitive ability.
The Coach – René Wokke
Most of the time, people are good at making choices. The trouble starts when you get too much information or don’t have all the information lined up neatly. Then you start thinking too much, and that’s where things go wrong. Because a lot of day-to-day choices are made with your unconscious mind. But when the stakes are high, people tend to use their conscious mind.
You can read the full article in Issue 13, still available in our web shop.
Interviews Renate van der Zee Illustration Annelinde Tempelman – Studio 100%
