When there is just no (useful) answer

Growing in the Western hemisphere, the historic trust in reason in general and the Enlightenment in particular has left its mark in my mind, inducing me to believe that it is just a matter of making a big enough introspection effort to find the answer to the question of what to do next. It is obvious that the relevance of the decision is reflected in the amount of effort necessary, so that mundane questions can be decided in a whim (and even if the call is wrong, the impact is essentially negligible) while life-changing situations required deep and careful consideration. The other essential prerequisite to a successful decision-making process is sincerity: only when we are ready to admit and confront the ultimate reasons for the feelings that each of the options elicit we have a shot a choosing sensibly. Otherwise the result might be the same, but being unable (or unwilling) to see the motives behind can leave us insecure of our own wisdom.

However, there are situation where no amount of reflection can lead us to a satisfying answer, particularly when the number of factors to take into account grows and the stakes become significant, because even the definition of how to provide different weight to each of the aspects is a complex problem in itself. Furthermore, when the decision is bound to affect several people, the importance of each of the aspects is bound to vary, and someone's opinion might end up being underrepresented in the final decision.

Photo: Steve Harwood

One of the hardest part of working in space research lies in the fact that there as just not many venues where this can be done on a consistent basis, perhaps a few tens of institutions around the world. There are perhaps a couple of hundreds of companies that occasionally get involved in this business, but not with a high enough recurrence to call it a proper career. The natural conclusion is that, if you want this job you will be forced to move (and stay) where the job is, rather than looking for a suitable position in your surroundings. And if moving to the job is difficult, staying can be even harder, but not because doing something is easier than doing nothing (it never is) but by the constant need to "not do" day in and day out.

Psychologists and life coaches have identified this pattern very clearly, particularly when it comes to food temptations: if your heart is split between eating a snack or not it is much easier to fall for it than to keep yourself under control, because once you eat it you are done, but every time that you manage not to eat the snack you are just bound to face the same decision one minute later, and then another, and then another. This means that, in order to successfully resist the temptation for an hour you have to be able to say "no" sixty times in a row: the moment you fail just once the snack is already gone and you have failed in your goal of controlling yourself. That is why the recommendation goes overwhelmingly in the direction of resisting the temptation while shopping, because being distracted with your shopping list actually makes it easier to stay focused and, if you manage to get out of the store without the snacks, there will be no need to resist the temptation at home, because the snacks will just not be there. Of course, if you craving is too big you can always drop whatever you are doing and head into the store to yield to the temptation but the psychological cost (e.g. getting dressed and then driving or walking to the store) is now much higher than if you had the snack at home.

When it comes to life-changing decisions the problem is that the cost of repeatedly choosing not to act accumulates over time, but choosing to act once (and upend your routines to embrace an uncertain future) is not easy either, so it is not uncommon to find yourself between a rock and hard place, without the slightest idea of what option would be better in the long run. And what makes it worse is that even discussing the situation with your friends (or the server at your favorite dive bar) does not usually help in making headway: the factors are many, the uncertainty huge, the risks overwhelming.

So in line with my reflection a few days ago, I will admit that I have no useful answer right now so, rather than going for a hasty decision I will rummage over it a little longer, trying to involve not only Karen and the kids but also my parents and hers well, to see if, perhaps with a greater or smaller commitment on their side, we can all move the needle in one of the directions far enough to reach a helpful conclusion. In the meantime I will continue to regurgitate my thoughts over here in case anyone still keeps the score. Have a nice evening.