![]() Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. Instead, think about it as an opportunity to be the author of your own life.Ĭopyright © 2021 NPR. So the next time you're faced with a hard decision, don't stress about what path is best. KEANE: The key is to ask yourself not what is the right choice, but who can you commit to being?ĬHANG: So this is why hard choices are important - because they're like junctures in our life where we get to realize ourselves as one kind of agent as opposed to another, someone who has most reason to do this thing instead of that thing. ![]() And you make yourself into someone for whom it is now true that you have most reason to do that instead of the other thing. You have to open yourself up to the possibility of making a commitment.ĬHANG: And when you do that, you finally remake yourself into - or realize yourself as someone who has committed to the career on the West Coast or to lumberjack-hood. And it requires some mental and emotional courage. That leads up to the next step - the heart of Chang's process. KEANE: If improving one option just a little bit doesn't provide a clear winner, then, Chang says, you're in a certified hard decision. It doesn't make that improved job now better than the East Coast job. So how do you choose? Imagine if you could improve one of the options.ĬHANG: OK, guess what? We're going to raise the salary of your West Coast job by a thousand dollars a year.ĬHANG: It's better than it was before, but it doesn't seal the deal. KEANE: Say you've been offered two jobs, one on the West Coast and another on the East Coast. ![]() Chang says most people get stuck at the pros and cons stage and suggests running a quick test.ĬHANG: I call it the small improvement test. Wearing flannel to work is great, but that goes in the pro column for both lumberjack and journalist, clearly, so I'm right back where I started. That'll help you assess what factors are really important to you. KEANE: Now, with two options, you'll want to make that classic pros and cons list. KEANE: How did you know that lumberjack was my backup career, Ruth? And guess what? In some respects, being a lumberjack is going to be better than being a journalist. KEANE: To Chang, a truly hard decision means having two alternatives that are on a par with one another.ĬHANG: You could be a lumberjack, or you could be a journalist. But a hard choice.ĬHANG: The sad truth about hard choices is that the choice is hard because one option isn't better than the other. Getting a life-saving operation, Chang says, is a big but an easy decision. Chang says when it comes to facing a decision, you first need to clarify, are you making a big choice or a hard choice? Because there's a difference. And one of Chang's research areas is decision-making. She's a philosopher and professor of jurisprudence at Oxford University. I think it's a great opportunity to think about how to think. RUTH CHANG: The pandemic has definitely wrought some big changes in our society. MEGHAN KEANE, BYLINE: 2020 brought a lot of change, and that means people are facing a lot of big decisions this year. Switching gears now - making a big life decision can be overwhelming, but there might be a better way to think through a hard decision than just staring at a list of pros and cons.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |