How to Even…Make a Difficult Decision
by Michael Gushue & CL Bledsoe
Once upon a time, our parents or guardians (or captors) would tell us what to do, and we could then blame them when things inevitably went wrong. As we grew up, we started thinking we should make decisions for ourselves and shared this insight with our parents, mostly by glaring and mumbling at them. This was a dumb move, but our parents were letting us make it so we could learn a lesson. Or maybe they were just really bitter after all the years of trouble we gave them and wanted to take it out on us. Regardless, the lesson is that making decisions can be a real drag, but they’re part of being an adult (unless our Twitter campaign is successful #makelovenotdecisions.
If you’re struggling with a difficult decision, that probably means it’s a bad one. You know this, but, for some reason, you still want to do it. (Or maybe it’s something you really SHOULD DO, but don’t want to. But that’s easy. Just tell whoever’s involved that you have a headache and stay home and cry in the dark.) So the question then becomes “Are the consequences of this decision ones I can live with?” If the answer is yes, by all means go ahead and potentially ruin your future — for a brief moment it will feel like it was worth it. If the answer is no, however, that doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t go ahead and make the worst mistake of your life.
Listen, we get it. We’ve all sold our ex’s banking information to Russians, hacked into their laptop cameras just to see their faces when they fall asleep watching Netflix, or hired a mad scientist to implant our personalities into their pets just to sit on their laps one last time. Everyone makes bad decisions, with the exception of people in a coma (see also How To…Fake Your Own Death) which can itself be the result of a bad decision. Being in a coma is in fact the first method for avoiding the consequences of a bad decision. If this is unappealing, there are a few other ways to avoid said consequences. Not as good as a coma though. That’s solid gold.
So, let’s look at this logically.
To begin, Assess The Consequences of Your Bad Decision.
Put the following in what you believe to be a descending order of severity to indicate your personal Bad Decision Scale Of Consequences:
> Mild irritation whenever anyone around you blinks.
> Realizing that Everything Is Cats.
> A viral YouTube video of you attempting to dance.
> Necrosis of the brain.
> Social isolation right after you read a really good book you want to talk about.
> Having a state holiday named after you, ironically.
> Exploding kneecaps.
> Solitary confinement, but through your window you can see a pet shop. Every week, a new adorable puppy is put in the storefront window, and you fall in love with it. At the end of every week, that puppy is sold, and you never even had a chance to pet it. You have a last glimpse of it looking back at you through a car’s rear windshield as it disappears into the distance. Every week.
> Getting a theme song, but it’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something, and it’s the actual band. They just follow you around all day playing it.
> The pity and contempt of neighborhood children.
> Being transformed into a pastry.
> Getting a papercut on your genitals due to your love of literature.
> Paralysis.
> Paralysis surrounded by clowns.
> Paralysis surrounded by French clowns.
> Paralysis surrounded by French clowns who want to try a new routine on you involving flaming axes, your naked body, and 73 gallons of Ovaltine.
> Discovering you’re the star of a reality show you didn’t know was being filmed, but at the same time learning it was cancelled due to lack of interest.
> A great uncle you never knew dies. At the reading of the will, you learn you are given custody of a developmentally disabled duck named Corky. At first, you are incredulous, but over the next few weeks, you truly learn to love and appreciate Corky, only to have him taken away by the state due to your incompetence. Lifetime makes a movie about it but changes your character to be a newly divorced single mom, and they get to keep the duck. But not you. You’re alone forever.
> Your flatulence sounds like applause.
> Developing an allergy to the color blue.
> Nuclear winter and you don’t have a thing to wear.
Now review your list. No matter what order you put these consequences in, it was the wrong one.
Wait, what?
Time for the Psychobabble.
It’s because the consequences you put at the top of the list are the ones you are most afraid of, and, as a result, the ones you are most likely to experience. But the consequences of bad decisions you are most likely to experience are also the ones you will most frequently experience. Because of this there are two mutually exclusive paths you can take. First, you can learn not to make bad decisions. This, of course, is impossible. Every decision is different, and no one can tell beforehand whether it will be a bad decision or not. That would be like predicting the future. If you could do that, you’d never run out of Old Bay flavored chips, and we both know you run out of all kinds of chip all the time.
But your poor snack planning is inevitable, just as your poor decisions are. This is because free will is an illusion. Some of you are reacting very strongly to that statement, which we intended. See? Every decision you have ever made or will ever make comes from a set of characteristics that were programmed into you by society. People are social animals. That means we learn almost everything we know from others. We’re born more or less as blank slates which are then scribbled on by everyone around us. As a result of all the colored chalk covering us, we are programmed to think and feel and react in certain ways by our parents, our teachers, and various people who sit by us on public transportation. As we mature, we take that information, those mores and norms, and we build on them. But our baseline programming is still there, even if we’re unaware of it — and as you well know, many people are. This programming isn’t simply a set of algorithms, though; it has shaped the very core of who we are as people. It is extremely difficult to “overwrite” this programming. Some would argue it’s impossible. And even if they’re wrong, the way in which we would go about changing the programming would, in fact, be determined by the programming itself. So, pretty much, you’re as doomed to run out of chips as you are to make bad decisions.
You are now left with the second path. It is simply this: to become, over time, inured to any and all consequences.
But How Do We Stop Caring and Start Living?
Booze, of course. But we recognize that booze isn’t for everyone. We started this blog as a way to help people and bring them together, and mostly to make a lot of money and get famous. We certainly didn’t want to divide people, unless that makes us rich and famous somehow. So, if you’re part of the booze crowd, that’s great. If you prefer pot, that’s also great. Hey, even horse tranquilizers have their place. The point is, reality bites. The entire purpose of human society is to get as far away from reality as possible. Unfortunately, we exchanged the reality of being eaten by sabre-toothed tigers for the reality of whatever the fuck this is.
But the thing is, bad decisions are fun. That’s why your mom keeps making them. It’s just that “the man,” i.e. that judge/your parole officer/the voices in your head — keep telling you they’re bad for you. You know what else is bad for you? Butter. You know what makes everything better? Also butter.
Terrible Decisions that Would Probably Be Fun:
- Breaking your ex out of rehab and blowing your retirement on crank.
- Selling your own body parts, ranging from blood or plasma to a kidney.
- Selling someone else’s body parts using a complicated misdirection and a lot of fast talking to convince them and the medical professionals removing the body parts.
- Watching daytime TV.
In Conclusion
Dear Reader, now you can see that avoiding the consequences of a bad decision is as easy as refusing to acknowledge the existence of cause and effect. Maybe that sounds crazy, or maybe your face is crazy. But lookit, is there an ultimate order to the universe? We mean, really? Do your decisions really matter? Or, is life ultimately meaningless and overpriced, and in such small portions? On the other hand, when was the last time you really petted a puppy? You’re sitting there, reading this at work, thinking about waffles when you could be petting a puppy. Or maybe you’re a cat person. That’s okay. We accept everyone. So when was the last time you were mauled and ignored by a cat? Too long, we bet. You should go do that. All you have to do is…decide.
