The Art of decision making ⇱⇙⇛⇘ ⇗⇚⇖⇲

photo by Nadine Blochberger

Have you ever considered that all of our experiences are a result of a decision that we made?

Decision dictate the direction of our life including where we live, who we meet, our work in the world & our relationships. Even seemingly minor choices can have a profound impact on our life path. The life we are living right now is a result of a sequence of decisions.

Do you know how we make decisions?

Most of us have been taught to use our minds to make decisions. Familiar recommendations include: “use your head, make up your mind, figure it out, think it through, and weigh your options. “ But here is the catch - consider the possibility that the mind is not the best tool for decision making.

What if we have an innate embodied capacity to make correct decisions for ourselves & in a way that is more clear and accurate than the faculty of the mind? 

For most people this innate decision-making capacity is underutilized it might even be totally unknown to them. This new way of decision- making eventually leads to experiencing life with ease & confidence, and more often find ourselves in the right place at the right time with the right people. The mind is not the correct authority for decision-making. The true purpose & value of the mind has largely been misunderstood. Through it’s cognitive capacity, it’s easily conditioned by outside influences. This tendency of mind to be conditioned makes it a limited & easily distorted mechanism for decision-making.

The correct role for the mind is to witness & observe life. It is a remarkable tool for observing & recording knowledge & experiences as memory; however as a consequence of deep social conditioning we assume that the mind is capable of directing our lives through its decisions. The mind is a vast data bank of sensory input & information accumulated of several lifetimes. It overwhelmed and confused the personal decision-making process. It can’t discern what’s correct for us, because it’s ‘data storage’ comes from deep conditioning it takes in from others. The mind internalizes answers, opinions & ideas from various outer authority including parents, teachers, religious leaders, spouses, friends, politicians, and the media. 

Can you see how mental decision-making is based on the influence of these external authorities? 

With mental decision-making, we’re all vulnerable to living out a homogenized version of life that has little connection to what is healthy, satisfying & uniquely correct for us. It’s likely that the conditions of our life right now are a product of these conditioned influences. At least partly. The mind is filled with repetitive thought patterns which we may not even notice as conditioned, because they are so familiar to us; they are running as a constant background commentary through our day-to-day life. Making mental decision leads to unconsciously conforming to external expectations and/or following collective ideals & rules that we began identifying with in childhood. 

Life is robbed of real individuality; it often becomes a superficial facade of a socially-environmentally conditioned concept of ‘normal’. Living a conditioned life brings the experience of frustration, bitterness, anger & disappointment

When the mind is making decisions, it is pretending it knows what is healthy & good for us, often trying to manage & control our devious through deception, distortion & fear. Fundamentally the mind makes it’s decisions based on a deep fear about survival. Over time we can end up with a life that is built on so many fears & lies that we feel a constant, generalized state of anxiety. Is it any wonder that a large segment of western society consumes anti-depressant medication on a daily basis? Is it any wonder that so many people today are unsatisfied with their quality of life? 

People are searching for meaning in a world which is built upon the illusion of mental control. Many are living lives filled with depression & anxiety, thinking they are not good enough or that they will never succeed in the face of all this pressure of modern society.

Many see that our lives are not fulfilling, but very few of us question our decision-making process or recognize that our lack of fulfillment is related to mental decision-making.

Let’s break out of a mentally driven & discover the truth of our unique life and find the pleasure & ease of living as our authentic self.