A1. Choose Choice:

Acknowledge unconscious choices

Our lives have the potential for unlimited potential and wonder. Still, we end up using much of our time sending emails and charging gadgets. To reassess our priorities, we may deliberately use our present awareness to acknowledge the countless passive choices we make each day. Constantly questioning ourselves, however, makes us feel anxious, exhausted, and directionless. On the other hand, never disabling the autopilot neglects the potential for positive change that occurs when we curiously and proactively seek out our path in life.

Setting our direction requires us to make room for a calm and open mindset rather than making judgment calls between calls when our judgment is clouded. Making such mental room helps to disable that autopilot, reduce anxiety, and increase our options as we broaden our horizons. Reaching a state of less stress and more clarity lets us deliberately make choices aligned with our deeper convictions. Once the direction is clear, we may take aim, narrow our perspective, and set out on the new path forward.
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We have limited time and energy for making conscious choices. Hence, we should spend what time we have wisely on the choices that are most important to us. Serious consideration takes serious time and focus, both of which are limited resources. Instead of reviewing our direction in life, we end up on the path of least resistance, often involving colorful screens and sugar. We often reduce productivity to mindlessly crossing items off our to-do list as it is less intimidating and more measurable than contemplating our direction. This pattern of action is why we often end up prioritizing what is urgent over what is important.

These prioritizations of the urgent fit perfectly within our economic and cultural paradigm where non-reflective consumerism works wonders for creating demand that helps drive gross domestic product (GDP). Regardless of whether the hen or the egg came first, our collective mindset and societal paradigm seem to reinforce each other. Exemplified, a society that prioritizes productive growth may distribute increasing amounts of amphetamines to make each citizen’s mindset streamlined for productivity. While this serves society’s quest for increased growth and conformity, it may not always serve our expectations in life.

Regardless, there is great value in our highly productive society. Growth has brought hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty and advanced our lives in many critical aspects. But today’s digital economy, armed with machine-learned marketing algorithms, creates a kind of self-reinforcing invisible hand. This hand increasingly pushes to create new virtual short-term demand rather than supplying us with the sustainable long-term solutions we desperately need. Unless we make a conscious effort, we’re left with little room for original thought outside the norm. We are then stuck running down a path defined by those with the power and dollars to shape our path for short-term incentives rather than long-term development. When we fail to stop and consider our direction in time, we will likely end up cynically questioning the map handed to us by commercial interest, being lost in the territory of our real lives as consumerism fails to deliver on its overpromise of a fulfilling life.

Even if we set the value of individual freedom aside for a moment, the very foundation of progress relies on trial and error, iteration after iteration. Our future solution space and optionality become severely reduced if no trial or error is allowed outside of tightly defined cultural norms. If our DNA did not mutate and change from one generation to the next, if societal values were never challenged and our childhoods were not full of curious adventures—where would we be?

Revisiting some of that childlike curiosity allows us to reconsider where we’re going, compared to less obvious routes. It gives us the perspective to challenge the path we call our own but may just have borrowed for convenience.

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Regardless of individual choice in the context of society, many of us struggle individually with stress, decision fatigue, and fear of missing out. If we consider stress as the distance between where we are and where we would like to be, we can visualize the tension building up as the distance grows. It may be the emotional distance in a relationship, the gap between actual and planned progress in your project, or between the person you would like to be but aren’t. Despite all the options at our disposal, we feel stuck. Still, as the old saying goes, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results” (Brown 1983) .

Instead, we can either change or fully accept that we won’t. Both approaches are valuable, but applying them arbitrarily, or worse, doing nothing, clearly won’t yield different results. Unrealistic targets or wanting to change too many aspects of our life all at once will leave us feeling exhausted. Accepting the status quo likely leaves us feeling stagnant. Presumably, we need to find clarity to make these prioritizations.

To a certain level, stress and a heightened central nervous system can be used as an efficient tool, giving us the energy and focus to do more and feel fulfilled in doing so. Being out on a run, we more easily get into the flow when knowing the direction, focusing all energy forward instead of anxiously stopping to consider alternative routes. Our executive function moves fast and frictionless in a well-defined environment with clear rules. It stumbles when faced with the abstract question of why or where to go. In these situations, we may find ourselves doing more of the same when we need to bring out our best tool for getting a better perspective, our conscious awareness.

But we need to sit down and shut up. Literally. While we may not solve all of the world’s problems, sitting quietly without agency for even a few minutes in silence and solitude, going for a walk, or enjoying nature goes a long way. What just minutes ago triggered our fight or flight reflex to the point where other perspectives faded away now seems more distant. In this state of mind, we can look at the subconscious choices we make. What altered situation and state of mind would have made us skip those hours in front of the screen, inspired us to plan our next adventure, and guided us to live by our core principles?

What did we not decide on today, and why? Will it be different tomorrow?

SYNTHESIS:

• - Notice what decisions will benefit from us being calm and open vs. energetic and focused.
• - Use a calm state of mind to realize unconscious choices and review if they are beneficial to us.
• - When the decision is taken in a state of contemplation, move into a narrowly focused mindset to execute without introspection or doubt.