Prioritizing Your Desires

We’re in the middle of a week-long (so far) series on decision making. Get caught up before reading today.

In the view of decision-making we’ve been presenting, our actions are what indicate our feelings (or our values). So, if I say my highest value is living close to family, for instance, and then move away from family the first chance I get, then I am indicating with my actions what my feelings truly are. In this case, I would be communicating that my highest value is not living close to family but something else altogether.

Now, how does this apply when there are lots of confines around the decision-making process? For instance, I say my highest value in life is staying close to family but I lose my job unexpectedly and have little to no savings, and so I must find a job quickly. Let’s say I can only find a job in Arkansas that allows me to return to work immediately. Am I communicating that I do not value family by leaving to take that job?

I would say no. Here’s why. There are different levels of priority for our values in life. Being able to put food on the table for my immediate family is a higher priority than our proximity to family. I’d rather be able to keep a roof over our heads in Arkansas than live on the streets in Virginia near my family. That means sacrificing some desires that are of a lower-order priority. Issues of survival are always going to take precedence over preferences.

More on this tomorrow.

The Responsibility of Decision Making

If we are free to choose our values, and therefore completely consciously responsible for whatever decision we make, then decision-making is both a skill and a huge responsibility. We’re confronted not just with the decision itself, which is the surface-level part of the process, we’re also confronted with the question of what we’re going to choose to value.

We often assume we already have our values sorted out somewhere inside of us and, with enough soul-searching, we can find them. This is certainly true on one level. We all value things whether we know it or not and often act in accordance with those values without any kind of consideration at all. But, when we’re making a conscious choice to do something (or not do something) we get to choose what we are /going/ to value.

We all have regrets, right? We all have decisions we wish we could go back and re-make. That is, unless we’ve just come to a place of radical acceptance and let that stuff go (which is a good thing). The beauty of this way of looking at things is that we can choose a new set of values to act out of so that we’re not acting out of the values of the things we’ve previously regretted. That is the responsibility. We’re responsible for making decisions in accordance with what we /want/ to value, not just what we think we already value.

I’m going to pause here. All this typing is making me tired.

Taking Radical Ownership Over Our Decisions

We’ve spent the prior four days talking about decision-making, and pushing back on a really common stereotype of the decision-making process. Why, might we ask, are we pushing back on a more conventional understanding of decision-making? (By “more conventional,” I mean, the view that says we way our feelings about the options available to us and choose the stronger feeling.)

To me, it’s a question of taking radical ownership over our decisions. For instance, if decisions are solely the product of determining which feeling is the strongest, have we really owned the outcome, or do we simply get to “blame” our feelings for our choice? If we frame our decisions in terms of what we already value, or desire, or feel, then we’re letting go of the opportunity to choose what we value, desire, and feel. It’s as if our values, desires, or feelings happen to us, rather than being things that we choose (or things that we do).

If I’m trying to decide between starting life afresh in California or staying put, then I want to make sure I’m acting in accordance with my values and desires. What is the best way to do that? To choose, fresh, as if for the first time, my values. For me, in my life, I want to prioritize family above all else, both my family, Brittany’s family, and Norah’s birth family. In order for me to value those family units in the way that I want, then I need to stay nearby. Therefore, I choose to stay nearby. I choose the value (being near family) and, therefore, I choose the outcome of prioritizing that value (not moving to California or any other such place). In so doing, I exercise great freedom.

Choosing Your Values

If we only determine our values through the act of making choices, then how do we make decisions? How is this of any use? Doesn’t this only make things more complicated?

It certainly has that potential, I’ll admit. But, at the same time, I think this could be a useful way of looking at the decision-making process. Here’s what this way of seeing does for us: It gives us freedom. We don’t need to spend hours deliberating and trying to discern the perfect outcome, or the best possible outcome, or the “right” outcome. We can decide which outcome is correct by making a conscious choice to value certain things.

I keep returning to a made up example of having to choose between moving to California verses staying in Virginia. Rather than weighing which outcome I feel strongest about, I give myself permission to choose values. Let’s say I choose to value warm weather. Let’s say I choose to value proximity to the ocean. Let’s say I choose to value being close to friends from graduate school. There are all sorts of things I can choose to value. The reverse is also true. I can choose to value staying close to family, or a lower cost of living, or stability, or staying close to Norah’s birth family.

The point is this: I can choose what to value and I do so by making a decision. This frees us from getting trapped in a cycle of revving up our anxiety trying to determine what we value based on feelings. It’s okay to admit that we may not know what we value. It’s freeing to assume we can choose it.

Decision Creates Our Desires

This is the third day of a series. Get caught up if you need to!

From yesterday: According to Sartre’s way of seeing, I only know how I feel about something once I’ve decided how I’m going to act on it. This means we have great freedom and great responsibility when making decisions.

I often feel paralyzed when I’m trying to search my feelings and determine how important one set of feelings are in comparison to another set of feelings. It would be nice if there was some way to measure them. Now, if Sartre is right, when it comes to making decisions between two opposite outcomes, we have no desires or values until we make the decision. The decision itself is what creates our desires and values.

So, in my example of choosing to take a job in California vs. staying in my current job (totally made up), I do not know what I truly value until after I’ve chosen. If I choose to go to California because I want warm weather year-round, then, at that moment, I have valued it more heavily than staying close to family. But, those values are not determined until I’ve acted.

If this is correct, trying to follow my heart by attempting to discern my values in advance of making a decision is kind of a waste of time, because it is not possible. We only know what we value in retrospect.

I’m trying to go through this slowly, because I know it’s going to seem very unusual.

More to come tomorrow.