Greg Proffit Writing

Tag: choices

  • Life Is A Preferences Menu Writ Large

    Life Is A Preferences Menu Writ Large

    A software preferences menu. Life is a preferences menu writ large.
    Outlook Preferences Menu (Screen Shot by Author)

    # 61 on my, 99 Life Tips – A List is: Know this about people: Everyone chooses what they prefer at all times from the menu of choices available to them.

    Most software has a preferences menu like the one pictured in the image above. This is where you can select your own favorites from the features and options available–your preferences. The software remembers your choices as you use it. Depending on the software, the selectable options are often binary, meaning they are Yes or No, Red or Blue, On or Off. Life is a preferences menu writ large. All of us, always and without exception, choose what we prefer from the menu of options available to us at the time the choice is made.

    What are you doing right now? Reading this? Why, when you could be doing something else? Isn’t it because you prefer to be reading this than the something else you could be doing?

    If you ask yourself the question, ”why am I doing this?” a thousand times in a day, the answer will always be that you prefer whatever it is you’re doing to some other choice you could have made.

    We can think about this in the negative if you like. Behaviorists and economists speak of opportunity cost. This is the idea that if you take one path, it closes the opportunity of taking an alternate path. If you work at one job, you cannot work at another at the same time. The lost potential opportunities are the real costs of the actual choice you make. And the choice you make is because you prefer that one to the opportunities you’re willing to lose.

    There is a difference between preference and desire

    But, as you think about this remember the difference between preferring  something and desiring it. I desire to be in Hawaii right now. But that’s not on my menu of options, or even if it is the expense to fulfill that desire would be too great. So, I’m stuck with my preference to remain at home, in front of my computer, writing this. Among my current menu of available options, this is what I prefer. 

    Does this mean everyone does what they want to do all the time?

    No. People do what they prefer, not necessarily what they want. Preference and desire are not the same thing. Sometimes the choice is between two evils. Neither is wanted, nor desired. Yet a choice must be made. People choose what they prefer, even if it’s not what they want. They will choose one unwanted thing rather than another they want even less.

    Knowing this about people, and about yourself, clears up a lot of confusion about why people do what they do. They do what they do because they prefer it. It cannot be otherwise.

    So, the next time you’re faced with a choice, which will be probably be within the next five minutes, think about this. Think about your menu of options. Becoming an astronaut might not be selectable, becoming nicer might be.

  • Master of the Obvious News – What You Look At Determines What You See

    In my post Look What’s In Your Hand, I encourage the reader to acknowledge the simple fact of having made it through every day right up to the present. That is not a simple feat. Nor is it one that deserves to be shrugged off and taken for granted. It is not a throw-away piece of knowledge. It is a simple exercise to show that we miss truths we’re not looking for.

    One way to think of life is as a daily search for clues revealing how we should feel about things. But life rigged the search. It will reveal the evidence you’re looking for. It will confirm your biases, whether good or bad. What you look for determines what you see. Optimists don’t need rose colored glasses. They are looking for things to feel good about, and they see them. Pessimists look for evidence to confirm their frustrations, disappointments, and skepticism, and they find the evidence. Problems are incredibly easy to spot. A child can do it.

    A wiser man than I once said, ”You don’t see the world the way it is, you see it the way you are.”

    Unknown…

    To see a different world requires a different you. 

    Do not despair, this is not an impossibility. However, seeing the good in the world around you is an acquired skill. It takes a commitment to look for the good and to recognize it when you see it. It doesn’t take any particular skill or talent to see all the problems in the world. Mastering the ability to see the good all around you is one of the most worthwhile pursuits of life. It is indispensable to a good life because a prerequisite for having one is the ability to see what is good about it. 

    No one who is habitually focused on the problems and deficits of their circumstances, or of the world in general, is living a good life, no matter how much money they make, what car they drive, or any other external factor.

    Every person chooses whether to be happy or not.  The decision is made alongside the determination to look for and see the good, or not. Some make the choice on the front-end and evaluate their circumstances based on that choice. They know that what you look for will determine what you see. For these, even when bad things happen, they haven’t neglected to also spot the good, the recognition of which acts as a defensive buffer for their mind and emotions. 

    Others make the happiness choice on the back end, allowing circumstances to dictate the choice for whether they will be happy or not. And people waiting for circumstances to be exactly as they want them to be before they can be happy never are.  

  • Life Is A Guessing Game Writ Large: So Make Your Own Guesses In The Trial-And-Error Infinity Loop

    Your Guess Is As Good As Mine – And It’s Yours To Make

    So much of life is trial-and-error, no? We all make guesses every day. Our lives are shaped by the never-ending series of guesses, evaluation of results, and new guesses. From the time a child is old enough to explore the world, she engages and interacts and measures the feedback. Of course, she doesn’t know she’s doing that. In her mind, she’s just putting her hand in the VCR slot. (I know, I just dated myself). But indulging the autonomous, natural curiosity of childhood gives a different kind of satisfaction, with a different kind of internal feedback, than fulfilling external expectations imposed by others. 

    The point is, we all make guesses about the world. We start with the idea that the world is our playpen. There is nothing in it to harm us. But a child left with a key will invariably find an electric outlet with a key-sized slot. Hmmm…this looks like it will fit. The child inserts the key and the next thing she knows she’s across the kitchen floor on her back, her mom frantically yelling and gesturing.

    Perhaps that is an extreme example, but it serves as a template.

    Life involves exploration and experimentation; and all good experiments start with a hypothesis, which is just a fancy way to say, ”a guess”. So guesses are made about things like how fast we can pedal our bike down the gravel driveway. Or, what will happen if I send that girl a ”do you like me, (yes or no?) note in class? And if you’re a bold guesser, you’ll want to see what will happen if you lean in close enough; will she give you a goodnight kiss? The guesses that turn out with good results both increase confidence and reinforce willingness to keep guessing. Bad results diminish confidence, reduce curiosity, and can lead to the basic anxiety that most people feel when facing the unknown. 

    For confident guessers, the unknown is exciting, even thrilling. Those once-bitten are not only twice shy, they lose confidence in their ability to guess well. These become much more willing to be told what to do, what they should want, and how they should live. To avoid a bad outcome from what they feel is a bad guess, they’re willing to let others do their guessing. They become ”second-guessers” of their own decisions. As you can see, a second guesser is actually someone afraid to be a ”first guesser”.

    The thing is, even for the less confident, the guessing isn’t over. As far as I can tell, it never stops. There is a daily feedback loop of trial-and-error data to process. Sometimes the results are immediate, sometimes delayed. The ones who do what they are told are still guessing that the someone else can choose better for their lives than they can. They are guessing that they will make a mess of things if they reclaim the basic autonomy to make guesses for themselves. So, they usually defer. 

    There’s no good manual or definitive guide for these things. There are no guarantees. All guesses are not good ones. But this is the life we’re stuck with. And that means everyone gets to do their own trial-and-error explorations to determine which actions and decisions produce results they like best. Our lives are shaped by this never-ending series of guesses, evaluation of results, and new guesses.

    It would seem that on paper, there are as many different ways to live as there are people. How then do we end up in a world in which we’re competing with one another trying to attain the same things? How do we become so easily manipulated to look and act so much alike? Is it because people too often become afraid of their guessing ability when things don’t turn out the way they expect? Something inside breaks.

    When people talk about a broken spirit, maybe this is what they mean. A person with a broken spirit is just someone not confident enough to make a guess that might result in failure. So they’re easy prey for someone else to use them in making their own guesses. And isn’t that the worst kind of failure there is, especially since guessing about the best way to live for oneself is the nature of what it means to learn how to live well?

    Make your best guesses today about what is best for you. That’s all any of us is doing anyway.

  • We Don’t All Value The Same Things

    Every direction on the internal compass points toward what is valued…

    One of the most intriguing verses in the Bible is this:

    Every man’s way is right in his own eyes… ~ Proverbs 21:2 NASB

    This is a statement, in scripture, that confirmation bias and self-enhancement fallacies are universal. It is not a positive affirmation that whatever you think, and whatever you do, is right! It is a statement declaring that every person believes themselves and the conduct of their lives to be right.

    Clearly, everyone’s ways are not right.

    This raises two puzzling questions: What is right? Who determines what is right?

    Now, I am not making an appeal to you, dear Reader, that you believe the verse is true by using the authority bias and appealing to a scripture that you may hold no truck with whatsoever, which is, of course, your prerogative. I just find it fascinating for such a clear declaration of a linked set of universal biases to be sitting in the middle of sacred texts. 

    Rather, my appeal as to the veracity of the text is to the evidence of your own life. Do you make decisions and take actions because you believe yourself to be wrong? Or, do you do what you do, believing yourself to be right, at least right for you?

    The outworking suggested by the verse has been true for me, and I suspect, has also been true for you. One effect is that it causes us to project our own set of values, norms, and beliefs onto others. We will have a tendency to judge others by standards we hold to be true for ourselves. We may deceive ourselves into thinking that everyone shares the same value hierarchy that we ourselves hold. We may think everyone prefers and is pursuing the same thing. This is not the case.

    We don’t all value the same things. Even long-time couples, whose lives are intertwined in a myriad of ways so that they end up more as one thing, than two separate things, may have different values, different preferences and pursuits. They may entertain different goals and hopes. Enough difference between ultimate ends and there is a problem.

    If we all shared the same values, we could easily produce an algorithm that would assure us of using the appropriate means to achieve the goals we seek. The only debate would be about means, not about ends, since those would all be universally shared and agreed upon. Everything from dietary choices to politics would be easy. 

    But we don’t all value the same things. It is a plausible argument that we should, but most of us are too myopic to look down the road far enough to see what true value looks like, that state (I posit here that true value consists in states of being, not in things possessed) in which you say, ”This is a good as it gets. I am content. I am satisfied. I could ask for no more.”

    In the political realm (which by extension affects the social aspects of Americans, at least), Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence inked in some values. These were well thought out by the political philosophers of his day, vis. ”all men are created equal”, and the idea that each of us has been endowed with some inalienable rights, among which are ”life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. 

    These Rights, these Values, are a package deal

    These are value statements. If like me, you’re American, you will give hearty assent that these are valuable ends, worthy of pursuing and protecting. But Dear Reader, consider; what is life to a man who has no liberty? What is liberty to a man who is not treated equally? How can either pursue happiness?

    These values are interconnected, they fall apart if pursued singularly, with a willy-nilly disregard for their interlocking nature. Which, of course, is why Governments are instituted among men. (The sentence immediately following the enumeration of inalienable rights above). Inherent in the very idea of government is the individual’s sacrifice of unrestrained liberty.

    Yet to some, having not well considered these things, and believing their ways to be right, Liberty is the highest value. And so they have proven they are willing to use their liberty to jeopardize their neighbors lives during a pandemic. To them, the pursuit of happiness is more important than either equality, or life. But I submit that unrestrained liberty is as equally devoid of true value as unrestrained pursuit of happiness. And is as equally un-American as it is inhumane.

    The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to counsel. ~ Proverbs 12:15

  • Is Feeling Good A Choice?

    Rise and Shine…or something like that.

    Do you wake up in the morning and decide to feel bad? Ever?

    And, to be specific, I’m talking about emotions here, not physical ailments. Though, no one wakes up wanting to feel sick, either. It’s certainly true that our emotional selves live at the mercy of our physical selves. There’s no denying the physical constitution dictates a measure of mental and emotional well-being.

    But emotionally speaking, in general terms, and in the absence of pathology, bad feelings show up because you’ve invited them. You don’t have to explicitly ask them in for coffee, they just barge in as the plus-one of your thoughts. 

    No, most of us don’t choose to feel bad. At least not in a way we’re consciously aware of.

    But, without a doubt, there are things you can do to guarantee you’ll feel bad, right? Try to go through your day noticing every single thing that is wrong with the world. Think about everything in your life that isn’t how you want it to be. If that doesn’t do the trick, think of the things that are okay and see what you can do today to spoil them rather than nurture them.

    What about feeling good? Can you decide to feel good? I think you can. You probably can’t guarantee good feelings the same way you can guarantee bad ones, but you can certainly choose what to focus on. You can direct your attention. 

    Here’s a way to give yourself a chance to feel good about things today.

    First, think of how you can guarantee feeling bad. 

    Now, do the opposite.

  • Exploration vs. Exploitation—Why You Should Know How To Do Both

    # 95 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: Learn when to explore and when to exploit. Know how to do both.

    I first heard the concept of Exploration vs. Exploitation in the 2016 book by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths called Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions.

    Briefly, exploration involves the discovery of something new.

    Exploitation involves mining a previously discovered pleasure to extract more pleasure.

    Both have their uses. Both are valuable to a life well-lived. A good life consists in large part in the enjoyment of good experiences. Those experiences must first be discovered. Once found, a determination is made about whether it should be tried again.

    We are each living on borrowed time. Time that is ticking away. Do we explore? Or exploit?

    Back in the time when we could safely venture to do something as dangerous as eat in close proximity to total strangers in a restaurant, did you prefer visiting different restaurants or going to a favorite? Once there, did you like to try new items on the menu or did you order the same thing every time regardless of how tempting another selection might be?

    When contemplating a vacation, (another on the list of past dangers) do you yearn to see a place you’ve never been, or do you crave the experience of a familiar beach, bar, and scenery?

    The authors of the book suggested that the younger one is, the more likely the scale will tip towards exploration. I think they’re right and that this is part of why the young have had a much harder time with Covid isolation.

    This seems obvious, right? The younger one is, the more every new experience is virgin territory. Our younger selves don’t know what is worth exploiting. But, I think the inverse may also be true. Youth causes exploration, sure, but exploration also causes one to remain youthful (in outlook at least). Each new thing, even a new idea, is something tried out for the first time. It hearkens back to the time when every thing we tried was new. 

    On the other hand, exploitation is a key component of a contented life. I am not interested in a life I feel the need to escape from once or twice a year to go and live for a week or two the way that I really want to be living. What kind of life is that?

    I want to craft a life surrounded by books, music, coffee, wine, bourbon, foods, a best-friend-who-is-my-lover; a life that can be exploited each day for the simple pleasures that are just as rich at the hundredth or thousandth tasting as they were the day I discovered them.

    I’m the guy who finds a restaurant and eats the same thing on the menu each time. Now, I may like 20 restaurants, each for 20 separate things; but I can’t thing of a single restaurant where I’d be interested to try 20 different things from the menu believing each one would be as good as my favorite thing, the selection that keeps bringing me back, the one I exploit.

    How about you. Do you prefer exploring or exploiting more? Has that balance changed as you’ve aged? Time’s a wastin’!