I went to my brother’s pastry shop and helped him over the past two days. While preparing cookie dough, I also started tidying up his shop’s cluttered factory and warehouse. Since I love organizing chaotic situations, it was fulfilling.
However, I needed to help without stimulating his inferiority complex. That made me consider my supporting style. Let’s discuss something that relates to it.
How to stop struggling with choices
Sometimes, we want to handle things as well as possible. We don’t like failure.
However, we have limits on thinking and imagination. Our thoughts sometimes don’t come together, no matter how much we analyze.
One typical example is a conflict between two opposing desires. For example, if we spend money, we can relieve stress but end up losing money. On the other hand, saving money requires more patience. Either way, it demands more patience, and we are already pushing ourselves to our limits.
That often makes us struggle with options.
One solution is to try listing options based on rationality instead of your desire. Reasonable choices do not lead to suffering, in contrast to those driven by desires. Today, I will explain it with my recent experience. This approach might help you try many things calmly.
Two ways to create options
If you want to stop struggling with options, try listing rational choices rather than those based on desires. In other words, you need to change how you create options.
There are two ways to make a choice, as follows:
- Creating options according to your desires: One option fulfills one of your desires but sacrifices your other wishes. Examples are money vs. time, patience vs. reward, and doing unpleasant things vs. the desire for approval. Although this approach makes it easy to estimate each option’s sufficiency, it can also cause inner conflicts easily.
- Creating options according to rational behavior: We make a list of reasonable actions to explore. Examples include altering the location, timing, method, and perspective. Although this approach makes it difficult to predict each option’s sufficiency, it often shows us unexpected ways that satisfy many desires at once.
The latter often shows us unexpected answers.
My case
In my case, I wanted to clean up and organize my brother’s shop warehouse. To help him, I needed to avoid stimulating his inferiority complex, as said at the top of this article.
However, when I tried to avoid his negative emotions, I ended up stuck in a loop of thoughts due to my limited imagination. There were too many risks of ending up with unpleasant results.
In that situation, I realized that I could list out a few rational approaches to action and try them. Those options are as follows:
- Speak and suggest rationally
- Speak and suggest using words and feelings that suit my brother’s personality
In other words, I changed my approach to generating options. I realized that I can explore multiple methodologies and verify his reaction.
That made my decision easier. I don’t need to imagine his complex behavior in detail. Although I cannot anticipate the effectiveness, the verification is simple, easy, and low-risk.
Conclusion
That is how to solve the struggle in choosing options.
If you stop struggling with options, try to list rational choices rather than those based on desires.
Although it makes it difficult to predict each option’s sufficiency, it often shows us unexpected options that satisfy many desires at once.
This approach might help you try many things calmly.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
