Evidence-Based Decision Making and Surviving an Existential Crisis
Life is hard. We can all agree with that. The questions about life we ask and plague ourselves with can seem to get harder and harder to answer as we navigate through our years.
For me, it was a matter of whether the decision making I was doing was right or wrong. What should I focus my attention on? Should I be actually keeping up with the Jones (which is constantly reinforced by my parents and people I meet)? Should I spend less money on this rather than that? Will committing to this aid the bigger picture? How selfless should I be? Should I gear my life towards pleasure or should I look to be making more of an impact on the world? How should I be remembered when I die? Or does being remembered even matter?
As you can imagine the self-awareness just got deeper and deeper and what does one do when this happens? Question one's existence! An existential crisis in other words. Why do I exist? As you can guess this lead to a lot of anxiety and a lot of depression. To the point of thinking existence is meaningless and whatever I will do won’t make a difference in the grand scheme of things. Pretty dark as fuck I know!
The main questions I kept asking myself was about how I should navigate my focus and time. As I would usually do I would read and reread various books and mediums on the topics of life, happiness, purpose, ideologies etc which had me scratching my head and hurting my brain. A few things I learnt from various sources which include but is not limited to are:
The movie ‘Gifted’ — Happiness comes from having friends and practising compassion for others
A Ted talk I can’t seem to find with a quick google search talks about a study a university did on several families from different classes over several decades — Deep connection with others is the key to happiness in life
A song of ice and fire (fiction has a lot of life lessons in it) — People with conflicting values will never work well together and egocentric values will destroy you and your family in the long run
J.Cole (yes I’m Including rappers) — It’s more about the impact you create with your craft rather than the image and money you garner from it
Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) — No matter how much you fuck up, you are always allowed to be better
Running a business (Real-life lessons!) — The power of a Growth Mindset, Accountability for my actions and the value of money
Mark Manson (Favourite Author and Blogger)
- Introduction to Immanuel Kant and his formula to humanity (this hit big for me)
- The logistics of money
- anti-fragile values
- the emotional brain vs the rational brain
- the power of vulnerability and honesty
- how there is more happiness in giving a fuck about a few things rather than too many things
The minimalists (Mark Manson lead me to minimalism)
- Money isn’t everything but at the same time isn’t nothing
- There is more value in living intentionally rather than through obligation
- There is more productivity in being focused rather than being busy
Mel Robbins
- Courage is the trait needed to take control of your life
- You never feel like doing something you need to do. It requires action and will power towards it. (Look up the 5-second rule, your welcome)
- Don’t be overwhelmed by the bigger picture, rather focus on laying one brick at a time with your goals
But one thing I know for sure is that we are all trying to fit in, survive and navigate the world the best way we can.
The hard part was narrowing down what to read and what to exercise into my life and mind. There is so much fucking information out there! Each contradicting the next.
The first thing to note is that the way one goes through life is not a one size fits all thing. What works for me probably won’t work for you and vice versa. But one thing I know for sure is that we are all trying to fit in, survive and navigate the world the best way we can.
Today I can admit my current existential crisis project is still going. I can say I have improved but at the same time, I still have a long way to go. This is where the title of this blog post comes in. Pretty late into the article, I know but please stay with me here.
Business has been a great passion of mine even though some days it has me having nervous breakdowns and questioning whether I'm fit for it or not. To improve on it I decided to start attending lectures at various universities around Melbourne to help me navigate and connect the dots better in the business world.
This lecture I went to recently was at Melbourne University (the Slytherin of all Victoria’s universities) and had a panel of criminologists talk about making decisions based on evidence. One speaker was Fiona Haines, a professor of Criminology in the school of social and political science talking about white-collar crimes in business and how she helps keep businesses to act in the public interest. She talked about accountability, questioning the integrity of a person, seeing if they have a conflict of interest with the business and the hard question of how they should move forward from the friction they have caused. In a few words, she states that treason never prospers and why evidence is important in great decision making when it comes to longevity in not only the business but keeping the economy going and the people safe.
The other speaker, Andrew Day talks more about trust when it comes to decision making using the example of politicians who rely on experts to make decisions. Again, talking about genuity and making sure there is no conflict in interest when taking advice. The main question is how do we keep politicians (and business owners) accountable for their decisions?
As this was an academic setting (one which I have not been to in a while) this lecture was pretty hard for me to absorb in straight away but over the course of the week it had sunk in slowly.
The part of decision making that interests me is based on values. What we value in our lives are basically what is going to drive our choices. Our values are created through evidence, whether realistic or not. This is where things got confusing. There is evidence backing up why you should live a life of enjoyment and pleasure and there is other evidence backing up why you should live a life of commitment and move forward.
Without consciously knowing it I actually have been innovating my decision-making skills based on evidence. In more business terms I am talking about ‘return on investment’. The time/effort model that yields a high or low result. Even though the lecture talks more about dealing with people, its mechanics can still be applied.
I can admit in my life and business I am a bit of a control junkie. I love algorithms, I love exercising real-life equations. All over my office and house, you will find whiteboards and lamination sheets posted up full of to-do lists and figures. I love spreadsheets. I love implementing routines and habits which I continuingly tweak and improve on to create the best return on investment.
A lot of my decision making on innovations and tweaks are based on evidence in five different categories (either a combination of or just a few):
- My energy levels mentally and physically (Energy)
- Jobs/Tasks getting complete and getting paid for (Business)
- Accountability and responsibilities (Morality gaps)
- Bricks getting laid in my passion projects (Happiness)
- Hope for the future (Survivability)
It all comes down to self-awareness, focus and analysing. I can’t confidently say I’ve reached a clockwork in my operations but I am slowly getting there. Like anything, it is the journey that is truly transforming and giving me happiness.
The existential crisis has been getting cured (or I think) merely by creating a lifestyle that I enjoy and that pushes my limiting beliefs. At the end of the day, I believe one has to find that purpose bigger than themselves to commit to and live for in order to have true happiness.
Thanks for reading :)
