Rule #12: Make active decisions

Be a person of action to live the life you imagine

One way to think about life is that everything depends on how you make choices. Is there any skill that is more important? Even deciding what to think or how to feel about your feelings is a kind of decision. If you believe in free-will of any kind you must accept that learning to make better decisions is one of the best investments you can make in yourself.

When I think about making choices, I imagine, as an exercise, that there are just two kinds of decisions:

1. Passive decisions: decisions life puts in front of you

2. Active decisions: decisions you force into existence

For example, a passive decision is when a good friend asks you to meet them for great coffee and fun conversation. You can decide yes or no, but the opportunity is created by your friend, and not by you. You are only making the second half of the decision: your friend made the first half. Do you want more fun coffee time with good friends in your life? If you are passive, and no one asks you, you will never get that time.

Alternatively, an active decision is a situation you create. It means you are the person who asks someone else out for coffee. Or on a date. Or more profoundly, decide for yourself to quit your perfectly acceptable job to follow a bigger ambition for the rest of your life. An active decision is a choice you force into the world. It’s something that would not happen if you did not take the action. You are making a decision that would not exist otherwise.

Why don’t people make more active decisions? The simple answer is it’s more work. And more risk. To make an active decision puts the responsibility on yourself. There is nowhere to hide: you, and you alone, initiated it. Active decisions can also lead to rejection from others. Or to feelings of failure. All these things are easy to fear more than living a passive or disappointing life. We evolved to have lazy, fearful brains that help us survive, not thrive.

And of course active decisions aren’t guaranteed to work out well. A more active fool isn’t likely to be any happier than a passive one. And even if you are smart, wise and thoughtful, for many challenging decisions in life you can do everything right and still be disappointed (see Rule #6: Embrace your luck).

Yet the other end of the spectrum, passivity, seems more troubling. A warning sign of a passive life is a surplus of complaints. A complaint means you believe someone else’s decision or behavior is the problem. It puts the burden of change on others and they likely have little motivation to change anything. They’re happy with how things are. Even if the complaints are valid, and you complaint loudly, the resolution is still outside of your control. This can lead to learned helplessness: a sense of powerlessness about life which can lead to depression and self-reinforcing, self-limiting habits, problems for which a passive attitude is unlikely to improve.

You decide your involvement in your life

One favorite thought about decisions comes from the movie Fight Club. In one key scene the narrator of the film is upset that his friend, Tyler Durden, did not include him in recent plans. In response, Tyler Durden angrily says this:

“What do you want? A statement of purpose? Do you want me to email you? Should I put this on your action item list? You decide your own level of involvement!” - Tyler Durden, Fight Club

It’s a harsh response. Yet there is something in that phrase that has always stayed with me. YOU DECIDE YOUR OWN LEVEL OF INVOLVEMENT. It’s a phrase I can’t help but say over and over again in my mind (I say it in a much nicer way than Durden does). I don’t entirely understand why. It’s almost like a Zen Koan or a mantra to me, where the syllables echo around in my mind in a profound way I can’t fully explain. There is no wrong answer. I can be involved in something or not. But I have to know that on some level I am deciding it.

Part of the power in this phrase is that as we age in life it’s easy to feel beaten down into believing our level of involvement is defined outside of ourselves. That we are forced to passively ride along for a mediocre, and not very satisfying, life. That it just takes too much energy to even attempt to be involved and we’re worn out. But then again, how could this be? Unless you are in a prison, literal or figurative, our minds are our own. We have the power to decide things. And as long as we are awake, we decide our own level of involvement in anything and everything. At least as much as the free-will we have allows.

Which raises these important questions:

• What level of involvement do you want with your friends?

• What level of involvement do you want in pursuing your hopes and dreams?

• What level of involvement do you want in discovering yourself?

• What level of involvement do you want with your community?

• What level of involvement do you want with causes your care about?

• And what or who do you want less involvement with in your life?