decisions vs choices: what's the diff?
spag mol essay idea. something instinctive tells me they’re not the same thing, but it’s going to need further investigation.
decisions vs choices: what's the diff?
"Whether a decision is good or bad can change based on how you act after the choice is made.
You can't learn all the lessons beforehand. You learn a lot about what you want in a marriage after getting married. You discover what type of career you enjoy after doing a lot of work. And so it goes in nearly every area of life. In many cases, what you w... See more
You can't learn all the lessons beforehand. You learn a lot about what you want in a marriage after getting married. You discover what type of career you enjoy after doing a lot of work. And so it goes in nearly every area of life. In many cases, what you w... See more
3-2-1: On getting what you deserve, the power of flexibility, and how good decisions are made
I think I secretly prefer treating decisions like irreversible trapdoors. There's a deep relief in having no choice, an absolvement of responsibility. But the truth is that the things that define our lives - our habits, our identities, our relationships - are choices made daily, continually.
Isn't that what defines the romanticised ideal of love that lives in my head? That it's a choice? Every day, every word, every action? We forget that love is a choice because it feels more like gravity. Things fall; why shouldn’t we?
Nobody has to show up with roses, peel fruit, or sacrifice their precious time for another human being. Nobody has to suffer through the weird way you eat or the annoying jokes you make. Nobody has to wake up in the middle of the night, paralysed in fear for the heart they've given away. Yet we choose to anyway.
It's scary to realise that someone could do so for 10 years straight and simply wake up deciding not to make the same choice anymore. And people do. With friends, with lovers, with life itself.
Love is a hundred thousand little and big choices. That's what makes it special, that we can spend a lifetime with someone, across thousands of mornings and kisses and still look forward to the next one, across a thousand annoyances and struggles choose to wake up and do it again, every single time.
Yet, for all the impact this specific choice has had on the trajectory of my life, I value the way it changed my view about choices even more. We often think of choice as a thing. But a choice is not a thing. Our options may be things, but a choice—a choice is an action. It is not just something we have but something we do. This experience brought
... See moreGreg Mckeown • Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Building on this, perhaps choices are something we do/act upon (or to go even further, something we ARE more emotionally), but decisions still sit in that murky realm of intellectual rationalisation. Your ‘choices’ and ‘decisions’ can be at odds with each other, and that’s the riskiest place to be.
Between stimulus and response there is space. In that space we have the power to choose. In that choice is our growth and transformation.
(Victor Frankl)
What my friend says sometimes bewilders me because he looks like a thirsty person standing right in front of a glass of water, yet when you suggest maybe he should drink it, he goes, “No, can’t drink that. There is a wall in the way.”
No, there isn’t!!
This makes me realize that what I said earlier in this essay is not enough. You can’t simply list w... See more
No, there isn’t!!
This makes me realize that what I said earlier in this essay is not enough. You can’t simply list w... See more
Henrik Karlsson • An essay in which my friend feels stuck and I suggest relaxing some constraints
First, become able to feel conviction even in the face of high uncertainty. Second, learn how to weigh your options so hard that by the time you've picked the best available action, no part of you has an urge to go back into "deliberation mode" until you encounter new evidence or ideas that would have changed the result of your deliberation. Third,... See more
Nate Soares • Dive in
A mistake repeated more than once is a decision. —Paulo Coelho
Benjamin Hardy • Personality Isn't Permanent
Will is the difference between believing and doing. It does not appear magically from nothing, but comes from living the knowledge that all beings of this earth are made of the same stuff, part of the same causally coherent system, and that no fundamental distinctions divide us. The will to care is not simply a choice, but our duty as parts of the ... See more
Hurry Up We're Dreaming
“Ready” is not a feeling, it’s a decision. You might as well start doing exactly what you want—time will pass anyway.