Two Indispensible Decision-Making Tools: Part 2

The response to yesterday’s post on decision making was so overwhelming in number and expressions of relating that I’ve decided to gift you all, my dear readers, with two great items given to me just the other day. Think of this offering as the blog equivalent to the loot bag Oprah gives members of her studio audience at the end of each show, except my booty bag does not contain a smart car. But it does send you home with two smart suggestions. They will cost you, mind you, but only if you decide to purchase them. Good news: they are affordable, which is not to cheapen the gift from me to you, or from its original giver to me, so that’s something.

First, the original gift giver requires proper credit: a friend of mine who lives in mortal fear of being blogged about (specifically by me), and who also thinks, not surprisingly, that every one of my blog posts is already about him, is finally going to have his worst fear come true, but in a good way (I hope). This friend, who shall remain anonymously neurotic, always knows exactly what to get me at gift-giving times of the year. Clearly understanding the true nature of a gift -- a one-way offering that enhances the life of the gift receiver in some way -- my friend bases his gift decisions on which critical (crisis) situation I happen to be currently obsessing over.


This Jewmas he gave me two perfect self-preservation tools that I should have blogged about yesterday because they are soooooo apropos. Oh well, better late . . . So, here's the first one:


How perfect is this? For the times when your brain (untrustworthy 99.9% of the time) and body (a fairly good barometer for how to make a decision, or how to detect if the one you made was a hideous mistake) are not sending you clear messages about how to make your next move, this low-tech decision-maker application takes the pressure off your mind and body and gets the job done practically by itself. All you need to bring to the exercise is the raft of crap floating around in your head. And the basic skill of dividing up your mind junk into the two opposing categories and then adding up each category to see which total wins. If you lack these simple division and addition skills, however, then no one can help you, my friend. Not even me.


What I love about this tool is the layout: how there is very little space allocated to the nature of your dilemma (because, really, most problems can be boiled down to one or two simple statements, such as “X is not doing what I want! How can I mold him/her in my own image?” or, “How can I suck my boss’s/coworkers’ brains out through a straw and then replace them with something I can actually work with, like chocolate?”) Equally miniscule space is given to the action plan, and that’s because by the time you get to that point, it should be pretty clear and simple what needs to be done – Trade X, boss and coworkers for a big box of chocolate, preferably 72% cacao studded with dried sour cherries. Done, done and done.

Now what?

And that’s what this snappy decision-making note pad is really for: the now what. As if invented by a Nobel-prize winning genius, which I’m staring to think it is, this pad provides acres of space for where space is actually required – the sprawling and endlessly entertaining amusement park of problem wallowing. If you are really honest with yourself, you know as well as I do that problems are where the fun is. Seriously, once you check the “problem solved” box, you have nothing left to live for, unless you have convinced yourself that you really do get a high from scrubbing toilets to a blinding shine, or checking your e-mail a gagillion times an hour to see if someone loves you, or watching yet another episode of Battlestar Gallactica, which would surely be more gripping in once-a-week doses rather than in day-long marathons. I mean it, give me a good old family or relationship drama any day, and make it look utterly unresolvable, and I'm all over it like Liz on a two gallon bag of popcorn.

This crisis-love theory of mine, BTW, is not just some hair-brained idea I came up with during the long boring days of peace. It is based on an article I read a few years ago (although I can’t remember where, when or who wrote it) in which the author proposes that problems, and their attendant stress, are essential to the development of our well being. The author cited a study of monkeys in the zoo who threw their food into their swimming water before eating it because their usual hunting instinct had been thwarted by excellent cage service, screwing with the monkeys’ evolutionary programming. Thanks to their uncanny human-like resourcefulness, however, the monkeys solved their problem by inventing a different problem. Throwing their food into water created the stressful situation of having to retrieve the food, and quickly, before it got spoiled. Voila: proper development of their psychological stability creatively solved. This problem/solution thing seems as obvious to me now as breast feeding: It's a self-sustaining system. And since we humans have evolved from monkeys, it only makes sense that the overwhelming body of evidence – just look at our love of soap operas, both virtual and actual – suggests that problems and stress are essential to our happiness. You don’t believe me? Turn on your TV. Or, call any one of my family members. I’m talking hard science here. Empirical, double-blind fact.

Conclusion: We don’t hate problems at all. We love them! No, wait, we don’t just love them, we lerve them. We loave them. If we hated them, we would have made peace with them a long time ago, putting a decisive stop to their endless sieges.

Next. David Shrigley. He is one of my favourite everythings. His books are doodlerific and brilliant. And it's comforting to know Shrigley faces the same life or death decisions we all face.


Who has not stood in front of a closet, or in front of a font, and had to make these choices? Remember high school? Remember baptism and confession? (Well, neither to do I but in both cases my Jewishness provides a good excuse).


Then, just when you think Shrigley has courageously given voice to his deepest fear, he bravely gives concrete form to the spectre of his deepest wish. I don’t know about you, but “etc.” is one of my greatest wishes, too. I'd do almost anything for etc.

And then, just when you lose all hope about the human condition, Shrigley swoops in with what I believe to be the most incisive, elegant and even hopeful summing up of the human experience:


That's it.

And those are my gifts to you.

Now before you slink off to scrub your toilet with a toothbrush, please, I want you to know that you should not feel any shame for needing to resort to either of these tools to help you make a decision. I don’t. Feel shame, I mean. Feel free to cite me as your shining example of someone who, from time to time, must rely on the pro/con pad, which can be purchased at Grand and Toy, or, if you have a neat hand and no feeling for copyright law, you can just copy what’s here. The David Shrigley book can be gotten at any quality bookstore. My current fave bookstore in Toronto is Type on Queen west, but I don’t know if they have this book. It’s just a great store, and I recently discovered it's the brain child of an old friend of mine who has the life I want -- husband, kids, store -- which is my current crisis. I'm sure my spot-on gift-giving friend will find the perfect item for this painful situation by Valentine's day.

And, last but not least, I want to say thank you to my friend, M.P., for providing the content for this post. You, too, are one of my favourite everythings. I would purchase you if I could. And, yes, this blog post is about you. (And so was that other one you kept asking me about).