124. Choosing A Life

You’re following a certain path when you realize there might be a better one. When should you change course? If the choice is a minor one, then maybe it doesn’t matter whether or not you switch. But what if the decision will change your entire life?

We’re usually taught that we should make the change when it would help us reach our desired goals more quickly. In doing so, we’re supposed to account for both the potential benefits and the potential costs. The result is that our choice turns into an optimization problem: we should choose the option where the benefits will most exceed the costs. In this way, we maximize the probability of achieving our goals, which is supposed to be the best possible thing.

When our choice is a purely practical one, this decision making process makes sense, as it helps to ensure we do not waste time or other resources. But is life purely practical? Is it the kind of project that strictly benefits from optimization?

Our ability to optimize depends on our ability to accurately measure and predict the benefits and costs. But not only does life tend to be unpredictable, it’s not at all straightforward to measure how we will feel about particular future outcomes. We can easily weigh certain benefits too heavily or certain costs too lightly. We might even reach our current goals only to realize they are not what is actually important to us.

Instead of trying to optimize our lives, we can look at what feels needed and necessary right now. To see this, we must remain open to the world and its many possibilities. We must be sensitive enough to feel what is pulling us towards it. This pull is an intuitive signal. It is a product of our composite experience, which is entirely unique to each of us. This doesn’t mean we should avoid thinking carefully about our options, but only that we should not rely on muddled reasons to make the final determination.

When our attention is open and free we can see what is needed, and we will feel it is necessary for us to meet that need. It is when we allow ourselves to follow these intuitions that we also begin to see a path towards a more joyful life.