Our Decisions Define Who We Are
Our decisions define who we are. Beyond our talents, skills or competencies is every choice made at a difficult time. There are also those people or things that we have decided to prioritize at a given moment. What we have left behind defines us, just as the ability to learn from mistakes and to decide a little better says a lot about us.
It is often said that a wrong decision is always better than remaining in the limbo of indecision. However, sometimes, even the simple fact of “not deciding anything” due to sheer insecurity is already a decision in itself. Because by not acting and staying where we are, a path and even a destination is already being traced. Thus, in each of those small daily acts, our life is built and also the person we are.
This subject is still curious and transcendent in itself. It is because many of us are often obsessed with the idea of making the best possible decisions, of learning to clarify options to be 100% correct in each step and in each choice. However, people spend the entire day making decisions unconsciously, motivated by our emotions, impulses and intuitions.
Let’s dive a little deeper into the subject.
Our decisions define who we are
Cow’s milk or soy drink. Send a message or make a phone call. Go for a run or watch our favorite series. Go to the party or have a drink with a friend at home. Each decision we make on a daily basis outlines something more than what we want at a given moment ; it also reflects the essence of our personality.
Raymond Kurzweil, an expert engineer in artificial intelligence and popular science writer, points out in his book How to Create a Mind that choosing how we invest our time is the most determining decision of all. The type of life we lead, the work we have and with whom we share our days are the direct result of specific decisions made at some point.
Therefore, we are clear that our decisions define who we are, but do we know how we make them? Is there really such a thing as free will ?
Our personality defines the type of decisions we make
People are free to some extent in decision-making. This is so because if there is something that is going to determine the type of choices we make in life, it is, without a doubt, our personality. For better or for worse we are “shaped” by the weight of genetics, by the education we have received, by the way we have interpreted each experience, and also by the context that surrounds us.
This dynamic set of aspects defines our personality and mediates, in turn, the type of decisions we make in our day to day. There are people more impulsive, others more reflective, some more prone to change and others with a more conservative behavioral pattern.
Making decisions is something that causes us stress
This fact is still curious. According to research carried out at Columbia University by Dr. Maya Rossignac, making decisions is, on average, something that generates stress for the population. It does so because people are always obsessed with making the most appropriate choice, not failing and being successful in each of our steps.
However, we forget one thing. Making the right decisions is an achievement, it is true. But the truth is that nobody has control over what may happen tomorrow. The cost or gain of a good decision is seen over time, but there is something even more relevant: knowing how to react when the decision is bad and knowing how to take advantage of it when the choice is correct. Either of those two things also tells us who we are.
Our decisions define who we are, not our talents
Our society is very prone to praising someone for their talents. We all have in mind that actor, that actress, that singer, that writer, that dancer or that presenter that we love because of the way he carries out his work. There are, indeed, people with exceptional talents.
However, if our decisions define who we are, sometimes we can be disappointed when we discover what choices many of those figures that we have as reference make. It has happened to all of us at some time.
One day we stop admiring or befriending someone when, suddenly, we witness their actions. When we see them prioritize some things over others. When they act selfishly. Also when we see them making little brave decisions, the kind that reveal their scarce human quality. All this gives us, without a doubt, some suitable clues about what someone is really like.
To conclude, as they say, the doors that we open and close every day are what decide the type of life we live. And, in them, certain figures end up being left out. Deciding well is an art that we improve with time and experience. Let’s keep it in mind.
