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  1. The New YorkerJoshua Rothman1/14/1924 min
    5 reads3 comments
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    The New Yorker
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    • erica5 years ago

      "Decision Science" was the name of my least favorite class in business school. It was all about how to build Excel spreadsheets. I'm happy this article redefined the phrase for me.

      I spent the beginning of my life not really having to make any decisions. I followed a predetermined course: preschool, elementary school, middle and high school, college. My decisions were just details: how much effort to put into academics, whether to go to all girls school, whether to leave California for college. I have made decisions as I've gotten older - what to do for work, where to live, whether to go to grad school, who to choose as a partner - but these didn't always feel very decisive.

      This is so true for me: "Yet it’s our unexplored options that haunt us."

    • jlcipriani5 years ago

      I liked this a lot. It felt very true to me about how decisions are made. The aspiration part of decision making is like making a vision board and taking actions in support of those visions - where the actions are not necessarily enjoyable in the short run- but are believed to be beneficial at creating a better, more satisfying future life and/or version of one’s self.

      I find making small decisions easy- because the consequences of such decisions are often easy to see and are low risk. Larger decisons are often paralyzing for me because I both see so many potential consequences for myself and others - and because I am vividly aware that there are multiple consequences that I cannot imagine.

      It is a complete cliche - but not actively making a decision actually is making a decision - it is opting for the status quo- but it is also choosing to allow event to unfold and move your life without attempting to steer - a risky path- but not always a negative one.

      The best and most important change I ever made - becoming a mother- was more acceptance of the outcome of ignorance (there are no residual effects of ingesting birth control pills last month) and being in circumstances that didn’t militate strongly in favor of termination (recently married, working a job I hated, law school deferment easily gained) and a sense of unexpected adventure - like someone offering me a free flight to Tanzania. And from that collection of half thoughts- three new people came into being - my daughter, my husband as father and myself as mother.

    • bill
      Top reader of all time
      5 years ago

      Overall: 7 out of 10. But the first paragraph is a 10 out of 10.

      This is extraordinarily dense. Several times I had to stop and remind myself what ‘aspiring’ meant. I’m still not sure I get it.

      Parts of this felt like drowning in a giant metaphor. The telling of the birth story was incredible, but I yanked a point for the overly sappy ending.

      “Looking back on his decision, Johnson can at least feel confident that he made one.”

      That was powerful. Decisions are never wrong. Not making them always is.