How to Make a Decision — Transcript

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1. 0:04a significant and intense chunk of our
2. 0:06lives may be spent pondering hard
3. 0:09choices should we continue in our
4. 0:11relationship with ex or part from them
5. 0:13to see who else we might find but what
6. 0:16if we land on no one better but what if
7. 0:18we stay and the relationship never
8. 0:19improves should we buy this property
9. 0:21that's beautiful but worryingly close to
10. 0:23the railway tracks or should we buy the
11. 0:25other one that has a bit less charm but
12. 0:27might be quieter should we accept this
13. 0:30job that has Prestige and the
14. 0:31possibility of a stellar future or
15. 0:33should we stay where we are because we
16. 0:35love our colleagues and have a high
17. 0:36quality of life part of the agony of
18. 0:39choosing at such moments is that we are
19. 0:41in the background consumed by the idea
20. 0:44that the wrong choice may prove
21. 0:46appalling in the extreme and the right
22. 0:49choice a root to exceptional
23. 0:52fulfillment but we are perhaps suffering
24. 0:55unnecessarily and might find reassurance
25. 0:57in the Strategic use of two kind of
26. 1:00thinking alternately optimistic and
27. 1:03pessimistic in tone to trial the former
28. 1:06we might propose that part of the reason
29. 1:08why certain choices feel so hard is that
30. 1:11all options on the table have in truth
31. 1:14something quite good to offer us the
32. 1:16choice is only hard because we are
33. 1:19having to pick between substantially
34. 1:21decent Alternatives we cannot choose
35. 1:23because the choices before us are all
36. 1:26pretty good if we stayed with X there
37. 1:28would be much to celebrate and if we
38. 1:30went off and found someone else well
39. 1:32they would have many charms too as for
40. 1:34the two homes we're judging between both
41. 1:36are really very pleasant in different
42. 1:38ways and the same holds true for our
43. 1:40jobs whichever option we choose we will
44. 1:43have much to be pleased about there is
45. 1:46equal Comfort to be found by running the
46. 1:48argument in an opposite pessimistic
47. 1:51direction we can get easily obsessed by
48. 1:53the idea that A wise choice is going to
49. 1:55help us to prevent a nightmare but
50. 1:58considered soberly there will be
51. 2:00something pretty difficult about every
52. 2:02route we choose to go down we're finding
53. 2:05it hard to choose because all options
54. 2:08have their unavoidably disappointing
55. 2:10Dimensions X partner can certainly be
56. 2:12annoying but so will y partner pretty
57. 2:15much anyone we end up with is going to
58. 2:18have their dispiriting sides there is no
59. 2:20dodging the inherent difficulty of
60. 2:22everyone as for property no house can
61. 2:25ever make life perfect a lot of
62. 2:27unhappiness will be ours wherever we
63. 2:29happen to sleep no house can spare us
64. 2:32fundamental agonies of existence
65. 2:34similarly the dissatisfactions we know
66. 2:36in our present job will have equivalence
67. 2:38whatever job we pick in other words
68. 2:41everything is certain to be a bit awful
69. 2:44a truth we are vainly striving to deny
70. 2:47in our Furious surge for what we think
71. 2:49of as the right choice what powers the
72. 2:53pain of choice is to a large extent an
73. 2:56illusion the idea of a single solution
74. 2:59that can either conclusively deliver
75. 3:01happiness or skirt unhappiness we are
76. 3:05thereby exaggerating our agency once we
77. 3:08recognize that by the time we are
78. 3:09spending hours on a choice anything we
79. 3:12choose will be both pretty fine and
80. 3:15simultaneously stubbornly somewhat awful
81. 3:17too we may cease to grow either quite so
82. 3:20exercised or so terrified we can afford
83. 3:24to rest more easily we are never far
84. 3:26from Pain and we are never far from Joy
85. 3:30we might almost let a roll of the dice
86. 3:33decide the rest