Decisions, Decisions...

What are you trying to decide right now?

Would you trust your future to a coin toss? 

Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame once persuaded a group of indecisive people to go along with the results of a coin toss.  The coin toss would make the choice. No more ruminating, tossing and turning at night, and pestering friends with the same question week after week.  Heads: yes.  Tails: no.  The question of job offers, moves, marriage proposals or new pets would be solved. 

As The Book of Beautiful Questions tells it, six months later Levitt followed up with the coin-tossers.  He found the heads (“yes”) people were meaningfully happier than the tails (“no”) people.  When people were genuinely undecided, taking a risk made them happier. 

One hot summer, I was a chaplain in training at a big hospital with a trauma center.  Every week, a different teenager came into the Neurology ICU with a shattered spine.  To escape the heat, people were swimming in creeks and rivers, and kids couldn’t resist diving in.  Week after week, a teenager woke up in the ICU to hear how much their life had changed. 

One night I ran into the nurse manager of the unit in the grocery store, still dressed in her hospital scrubs.  At the end of a long day, she still carried the anger of the teenagers and the despair of their parents.  I found her in the cookie aisle, tossing treats into her cart.  She smiled wryly, and explained that she had teenagers of her own at home.  Gesturing at the pile of cookies, she explained, “I try to say yes as much as possible.” 

“If it’s not life-threatening,” she added.  “it’s a yes.”

Every work day reminded her how dangerous the world is, and somehow, she didn’t hunker down and wrap her kids in bubble wrap.  She practiced finding ways to say yes. 

Her example has stayed with me.  In a world where it’s easy to stay home, to be too cautious, to let friendships wither when we’re exhausted, to keep looking down at our phones instead of up at each other, saying no is effectively our default. 

It’s compelling to think about where we can say yes. 

Of course, we’re fortunate to have choices.  As the people of Gaza and Ukraine and Sudan struggle to survive, the options on any given day are few.  Every day is dangerous, and no choice is safe.    

If we’re fortunate enough to have choices, The Book of Beautiful Questions offers another crystal ball.  Author and consultant John Hagel suggests that “whenever you face a decision between two diverging paths, ask yourself the following: When I look back in five years, which of these options will make the better story?”  As Hagel explains, “no one ever regrets taking the path that leads to the better story.”  I bet some people do, actually, regret that flamboyant choice…still, I love this as a guide to a more engaged life.  

Heads: yes.  Tails: hell, yes!

Image via Pexels.