Decision making - Heart vs Mind ....

In our lives we are all faced with a decision to make at some point of time. It could be as small as deciding where to go for a vacation or where to go out to dine or it could be as big as choosing a professional course like medical, dental or engineering or choosing a job or choosing your spouse. I am going to talk about the latter part which involves taking big decisions and how our heart and mind helps us in evaluating and choosing an alternative.

Having set the context let me tell you something about the role of the heart and mind. Let us say you have two options A and B. Let me convey this in a lighter vein. Your parents are searching a bride for you and they show you two girls x and y (Girls please don’t mind that I am using variables x and y). Your task is to choose between two girls. You have met them, interacted with them and have a fair idea on what the girls are. This task is done by our mind. It logically analyses things and construct a meta-data based on different parameters. If the differences between parameters being compared are huge then decision making is obvious. Say girl x fares very poorly in comparision with girl y on some parameters of your choice. Hence the decision making becomes easy and mind says yes. The parameters could be whether you want girl to be career oriented or not, or you want her to stay with parents and so on.

Now consider a scenario where it becomes extremely difficult to decide whom to marry. On some parameters x is better and on some y is better. You have a choice. Your mind has analyzed things but has failed to break the deadlock. This is where your heart comes into picture.

Your heart can’t lie. It knows what it wants. Just close your eyes and I am very sure, one choice will be in front of your eyes even if it’s higher by a small percentage. Go with your heart.

The same scenario can be applied to other cases as well. You are undecided between medical or engineering course. Listen to your heart. Go with it. Don’t look back in regret at any stage. Things will work well.

Now that you have listened to your heart in saying yes to x, it’s time for your mind to take over. And this is where you need to play a major role. Your mind will be in a state where it starts supporting whatever your heart has decided. You need to entertain thoughts which support your final decision. It is not going to be an easy task for sure. Never regret the decision which your heart has taken. But if you fail to do this you will be in trouble for sure. The confusion will again return and you will end up making your life miserable.

One more critical fallout of a decision making process is that you might let down few of your closed ones. It might be parents, sister or brother, relatives or friends. They might have their own choice. They will be disappointed that you didn’t go with their choice. How to manage this? You have made a decision. It’s your life and you are responsible for it. Just tell them that given the scenario you have taken the best decision. If they support you well and good if they don’t support then also it’s well and good. Just move on.

Another consequence of a decision making process is the guilt factor which sometimes shatters your confidence level. This kind of situation arises mostly during relationship break-up. Let us say you have arrived at a decision of saying no to a relation. They will question your decision and ask you to reconsider. And this is where the guilt starts creeping in if you are not strong about what you have decided. How to overcome the guilt? Well it is not an easy job but one way of looking at it is by asking your conscience. Ask yourself whether the decision was taken with the intention of hurting others or with the intention of keeping someone happy. If your answer to this is positive, then the question of guilt creeping in doesn’t arise at all. In extreme cases few loved ones will stop talking to you completely forcing you to think about what you have done. But if your conscience is clear then just get along with it.

To conclude mind analyses things logically and strives to arrive at a decision. If the analysis leads to confusion then ask your heart for answers. No wonder the saying listen to your heart when in confusion holds well all the time.