If no option stands out, you could just flip a coin – often you are simply taking a stab in the dark anyway
Why is it that big, consequential life decisions – whether to have kids, marry a specific person, pursue one career path over another – can feel so agonising? It seems like a stupid question. Obviously, it’s because they really matter. Yet, on closer inspection, that can’t be the whole story. All sorts of other decisions “really matter”, too: whether to seek medical help when you break your leg; whether to use an oven glove to handle an extremely hot dish; whether to park your car on a level crossing. But they’re not agonising at all. They’re so straightforward that it sounds strange even to think of them as decisions.
All right, then. Perhaps what makes decisions agonising is that they matter and there is too much uncertainty to know which option to choose. That sounds more reasonable. But as the US psychology professor Tania Lombrozo points out, it’s still a bit weird. If no single option clearly stands out – if they’re roughly equally appealing and you can’t reduce the uncertainty by doing further research – then your decision doesn’t much matter. You could just flip a coin. Or, as Lombrozo puts it: “Hard decisions should be easy.”
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