Are You Steering Your Own Ship?

Given this is my first post for Charleston Grit, I’m going to tread lightly, but you might still end up being slightly rattled.  (Not that I want to leave you with that emotion—but be forewarned....)

Do you make your own decisions? Most of us think we do—certainly when it comes to important ones like, say, who to marry? What if I told you that much of the decision-making process is influenced by our subconscious and preconscious—in other words, emotions and needs that live under the surface. For the most part, we are unaware of these and their influences on us. 

Wait, you say... What about free will? We are taught that free will exists and indeed it does. However, to utilize free will “freely” implies 1) we are aware of our subconscious influences and 2) we choose to overpower them or give in to them. What most of us actually do is give in to these influences without actually realizing the extent of the power they exert over us.    

I guess some of you are wondering if all this is important. Let’s say you could get a new Toyota Prius. You could also get a Corvette convertible and a Maserati. I think you see where I’m going with this. Maybe you could save money at the pump with the Prius. But maybe you’re going to get more looks with Maserati and more powerful  performance with the Corvette. We have a conflict between frugality, narcissism, and power. Whatever choice you make, I would bet your decision is 80 percent based upon emotions and subconscious factors. If you are at that stage of life where you have “mid-life crises,” I would raise the odds you don’t get the Prius.    

Big deal, you say. Who cares about what car you decide to purchase? I agree. Have a variety of cars so that depending upon your particular emotional desire on a certain day, you can choose to be frugal and wise, snappy and stylish, or “King of the Road.”  

However, can we have a variety of wives or husbands?  (Nowadays, I guess we can, although probably not at the same time. But that is an unusual idea—a garage with multiple bays for multiple spouses.)

Let’s say we want to have a marriage that consists of one single relationship for a lifetime. Let’s say we want that relationship to be fulfilling and intimate and rewarding.   Let’s say we want each individual in the marriage to potentiate the other’s development and help them to reach their full potential. (That would mean we could save money and get by with just a one- or two-bay garage.)

In this hypothetical case, we would want to be certain we made the RIGHT decision the FIRST time around. The stakes are obviously higher in this scenario. So, what’s a person to do?

“The better we know ourselves, the better decisions we make in terms of being happy and in adapting capably to life.” I don’t remember who said that but I definitely believe in the statement. We need to know ourselves. 

• We need to know our strengths and our weaknesses. 
• We need to know what it is we believe in and what we don’t. 
• We need to know what is right for us and what is not. 
• We need to have a good idea what our own fears and wants may be.

Let’s bring those sub and preconscience yearnings closer to our conscience awareness. Once we know all that (not certain at what age this occurs—perhaps we’ll identify it as maturity?), then we can set out to find another person that has similar values (we both want to marry on the Sullivan’s Island Beach as opposed to The Hibernian Hall?) and to whom we are attracted.    

In summary, our decisions tend to be influenced by factors which are not usually in our conscience awareness. The better we understand ourselves, the better is the communication between sub and preconscious influences and our conscience mind. To what extent we are in touch with these influences, we are in a better position to make adaptive decisions. Adaptive decisions lead to greater happiness and fulfillment in life. 

Oops-sorry to anybody that’s already made important decisions without realizing this. Maybe things will work out anyway.