We are all good at choosing what we prefer out of two general options, or what we would rather live out of two extreme outcomes.
Do you want to win 100,000 dollars or do you want to get punched in the face?
In these cases, rationality and preference mechanisms come into play. Of course.
But what happens when the answer isn't so clear-cut? What goes on in our minds when we have to decide on a more long-term basis and out of multiple "right" ways?
Here I want to pause to discuss the definition of a "right" outcome. This world seems obsessed with finding and categorising right and wrong things. Everybody thinks something is just one or the other but we forget other contextual and perspective dimensions. Splashing water in my face would not be right to do at work but if I do it in an appropriate context, such as in a Sicilian beach in August when it's midday, it becomes right. Also, it might be not right for someone to laugh hysterically but might be right (and categorised as "sane" or "normal") if the person is actually laughing to a really funny joke that his friend texted him.
Anyway, this is all to say: I think "right" is many times a changing, flowing status.
(I'll keep it personal here but in politics and international relations, this has caused many issues indeed).
If "right" is a fluid thing that changes, then there might be multiple rights at the same time.
Some "rights" may not even be as clear-cut as winning the lottery.
Here are some examples of situations that are not straight-forward decisions.
Is it right for me and my future career to accept this job?
Should I buy a car now?
Can I take a gap year and go travelling?
And here is a term I want to use: un-right. It might seem like un-right describes "wrong" or any other opposite of right but really, what I am trying to get at here is that we need to take a step back from all this categorisation and describe the situation just as it is in itself. Without giving it heavy connotations that might divert our judgement and thinking. This is because, if there are many rights that can become wrong and vice-versa, isn't it easier to just lighten up the weight of the issue and approach life in a less definitive way?
I think that taking a decision on a bigger scale -whether that entails moving, getting married or buying a house- can be a matter upon which we can rationalise the outcomes but only up to a certain point.
Especially if you're an over-thinker like me. At some point we need to let go of the pros and cons, of what's right and what's wrong. And just decide. If we un-right the situation, on the contrary of what people might think, we might actually do ourselves a favour.
Right is un-right.
This is because most of life's long-term decisions aren't (as aforementioned) outrightly good or bad. Sometimes we also may not have a clear preference or opinion regarding them. Judgement may often make us unhappy. Looking at the world with a win-lose approach does not always work in real life.
For example, if we do decide to buy that car...we will have both good aspects and bad aspects about it. Yes, we might feel that the good might be more than the bad, but who knows how long that will last. Sometimes we get confused and our thoughts might get tangled up.
If we only use the win-lose framework our thought process might look like this: "I did well buying the car, look at how fast I can go now! Oh, traffic jam. Maybe I should've not bought the car after all...oh what's going on? I would have been at work by now if I had taken the tube. Nevermind, I'm almost there. Oh, no...someone stole my parking spot!" and so on till exhaustion. I'm not saying we all think like that, but some of us certainly do!
What we really need is coping mechanisms for dealing with the cons of a situation that we put ourselves in.
Escapism won't work: it's a mischievous trap. The win-lose framework appeals to us because we think we can compete and win. But there will always be some parts of a decision that are not quite positive.
Also, we might even "win" once, but there will always be other decisions to make and honestly, we cannot possibly win them all.
If we don't learn how to cope with the cons of a decision, we might end up not making any decisions at all and wishing our life away.
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Sometimes the best option might not exist after all, even after counting all preferences in a well thought-out, rational way.
Sometimes we just need to account for the fact that neutral, un-right decisions WILL have both positive aspects and negative consequences.
Those times, we just have to learn how to deal with the negatives.
And that's up to you (sorry no ultimate recipe for life here).
**P.S.**
Another suggestion coming from a comment on this blog post by a friend of mine regards not focusing on coping with the cons altogether and instead on seeking the "magis", as St. Ignatius puts it. Here is a helpful resource passed on to me by her. Feel free to read it if you are interested:
