Thoughtful Thursday: Decisions Part 2

So last week I wrote about choice and how the brain processes choice. I've been thinking and analyzing choice in my own life ever since.

For those who don't know me, I like rules. Rules make it so there's no analysis to be done and that means my analytical brain can have a little vacation for 3 minutes whilst the rest of me is following the rule.

My stepdad makes fun of me and my mom because we have created these random rules about life that don't seem to make sense. For instance, if you are going to leave a light on in your house it's never a lamp, it's always an overhead light. We prefer to buy Tide...the original...in a powder, we always drink skim milk, and blue Dawn dish soap. But why? The green Palmolive washes dishes too...

I've come to an answer. My mom and I are analyzers and our poor brains are overloaded. I did some research and apparently sometimes when people have to much to analyze they make up rules so that there are somethings they never have to think about. Basically, its a mechanism the brain does to be more efficient. If there's a rule then you don't have to think. The decision has been made for you.

Here's an awesome example from my life:

Let's say I'm at a restaurant. It's after dinner and I think I might like dessert. For effect let's say I'm at Cheesecake Factory and I have 40 options for dessert. How does someone who likes to analyze all the options figure out which one to pick. By playing by the rules. Now I can cross off anything with nuts, caramel, peanut butter, toffee, and cheesecake because I don't like those and I don't care for beige food. Now my 40 options are just down to chocolate cake or ice cream, much easier for me to analyze. :-) Most of the time the rule means no dessert at a restaurant and that's fine, I can now think about my conversation instead of sucking up brain power on dessert analysis. Seems crazy but it works.

I've never stress out about dessert at restaurants...but it took me 20 minutes to pick out a flavor of candles yesterday...

Just imagine how indecisive I'd be if I didn't already have some of these in place. :-)

OHHHH...and Happy Thanksgiving. :-)