And so you juggle. You contort. You lie to yourself... Yes! I really need that 16.3 megapixel, 2.5 litre V6, five-bedroomed thingy. A list of all the pros and cons tips neatly towards the pros... But then reason prevails, and peace of mind returns - for a while.It's often said that someone who votes conservative as a youth doesn't have a heart, and someone who votes socialist as an adult doesn't have a head. Those heady student days of expressing solidarity with whatever downtrodden group was the flavour of the month doesn't square with tax planning and saving for your pension.
So where is the balance to be found between hot emotions and cool logic? Between rozsądek and uczucia?
How accurate is logic anyway? Look at economic forecasts of highly-paid analysts from the world's top financial institutions - how many of them ever get it right? The case of the South Korean stockbrokers whose stock picks were outperformed by a parrot - doesn't this prove that it's best to leave decisions to instinct? Let the chips fall where they may?
In a world where outcomes can be random, isn't instinct more powerful than logical analysis, even that aided by computers?
I'd think that here the slider needs to be set wherever your instinct says it needs to be set. Indeed, can reason and emotion both play a part - working together, rather than against each other - in the decision-making process?
Some people spend much time thinking about things and get nowhere. Paralysis by analysis. Others take decisions based on gut feelings - and get it right 50% of the time, and get it wrong the other 50% of the time.
This time last year:
Frequent flying civilises the nation
This time two years ago:
A week into Lent
This time three years ago:
Dramatic sunset
If you put one of the sliders in a future post, try adding a questionnaire at the bottom asking how many times the reader tried to move the slider. I tried once, others may not try, but I wonder how many will repeat the attempt.
ReplyDeleteThird time lucky? That's been the best out of three balance-related posts, I would even hazard a guess it's the third best post on W-wa Jeziorki (after 'Balancing on the edge of chaos' and 'Someone had blunder'd'.
ReplyDeleteI'm overly reason-driven and consequently I don't live beyond my means. It's very unlikely that I ever will. For me 5% for emotions, 95% for reason...
Top analysts... To cut a long story short, prices of financial instruments move up and down quite often randomly, driven by demand and supply, which in turn are to a large extent fuelled by emotions. The parrot just had more luck.
Paralysis by analysis - experienced it a few times and learnt proper lessons, but sometimes it is still hard to get over it...
Another good post Michał.
ReplyDeleteI, like Pan Steeva, have tried to move all the sliders to no avail.
As I get older, I find myself more capable of making decisions based on reason. In my earlier youth I wilfully threw reason out the window. Although I make many more decisions based on reason nowadays, I still make the big decisions with my heart.
Ever try flipping a coin to help you decide what to do? It's often a perfect demonstration of what you really want: if you're disappointed with the outcome, flip again!
@ All
ReplyDeleteFlipping a coin? Free will and Destiny - up next.