Making life decisions
Friends,
Hello, and welcome to Unpacking. If you’ve been enjoying this letter, please consider sharing it with a friend.
Well, here we are. We hope that you, dear reader, got a chance to recharge in the last few weeks, and we hope you’re doing okay now. A lot has happened since our last edition in 2020.
It feels indulgent to write a newsletter for fun when an attack on our nation’s Capitol by a group of white supremacist insurrectionists just happened. We’ll leave it to your fact-based journalism of choice (our favorites at the moment, The Atlantic, WaPo, BBC; WSJ’s recent editorial is definitely worth a read) for developing updates, and Anne Helen Petersen’s newsletter if you want to unpack how to “be productive” during this time. While we’re on the subject, we want to share our thanks to the journalists on the ground covering these events.
Today we unpack a tangential concept—making decisions. The New Yorker’s Joshua Rothman published this piece on The Art of Decision-Making two years ago, and it’s worth revisiting as we face a time of upheaval.
Rothman describes one of the big philosophical debates around how we make decisions. Many philosophers and scientists fall back on “decision theory,” the idea that decisions flow from a person’s values. Other philosophers counter that people don’t know, consciously, what they value and how their values change over time.
In the article Rothman heavily cites philosopher Agnes Callard’s book Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming to unpack how we sometimes make big decisions out of an aspiration to change our values. Essentially, Callard says we aspire for self-transformation by “trying on the values that we hope to one day possess.” This explanation struck a chord with us.
“Everyone goes to college ‘to become educated,’ ” Callard observes, “but until I am educated I do not really know what an education is or why it is important.” If we couldn’t aspire to changes that we struggle to describe, we’d be trapped within the ideas that we already have. Our inability to explain our reasons is a measure of how far we wish to travel. It’s only after an aspirant has reached her destination, Callard writes, that “she will say, ‘This was why.’ ”
Our Decision-Making Thoughts
Emily: I’ve felt this “aspirational self-transformation” before, and it’s cool to see it articulated so crisply. I remember meetings with well-meaning mentors who weren’t satisfied with murky explanations about why I want to change jobs or fields. Usually these meetings end with exercises to develop crisp elevator pitches for job interviews that clearly outline WHY I want to change course. It can feel a bit fake, and this article helped me understand why it’s okay to not yet know, why!
Carrie: The commonly used paradigm of “how-do-I-optimize-for-the-best-possible-outcome” decision-making has been making my head hurt. It’s like trying to speak out of both sides of one’s mouth: Can I optimize for everything? The answer is no. Callard’s work has me wanting to take bigger swings this year that forgo scarcity-based logic and lean into what I hope for most of all. Will have to report back!
Water Cooler Convo
Emily: I go through phases of engaging with self-help books and podcasts to make life decisions. One book that helped me make decisions in the past was called “Designing your Life,” and several years back I was a “Defining Decade” convert and an avid Help Me Be Me Podcast listener. But then, I go through long stretches of ignoring all self-help stuff because examining your life is exhausting, man!
Carrie: Oh I am WITH YOU on this. The tension is real. In case of interest, the lovely and free YearCompass is worth a look. It’s a PDF booklet that you can download and use to chart out the year prior and the year ahead.
Carrie: Emily, please don’t be tired of all my New Yorker links … this incredible piece of journalism by Lawrence Wright is challenging and important. Planning to listen to Fresh Air’s interview with Wright over the weekend.
Emily: I am considering subscribing to the New Yorker just for this one print-edition!
Emily: Carrie and readers, if you want something silly and whimsical to read in the upcoming weeks, might I recommend Fox 8, a short story by George Saunders? I bought this book because it was $4 at an online book sale and knew the author from his Lincoln in the Bardo success. Think of it as a bedtime story for adults. It’s delightful and only like ~60 pages, so please read and we can discuss!
Carrie: Bedtime stories for adults! All I want in life.
Thanks for reading! Thoughts on decision-making? Feedback about our newsletter? Shoot us a note at newsletterwizards@gmail.com or respond directly to this email.
Hang in there.
Your newslettering pals,
Carrie & Emily