This is a follow-up to a
devotional I gave at a church campout recently.
I spoke about the need for all of us to be careful about the basis for
our decision-making process. We were at
Donner Lake, so I used the Donner party as an example of poor decision-making
skills. They rejected good advice,
listened to bad advice, and many ended up dead as a result.
Most of us don’t have to make
such life changing decisions. We have
important decisions to make, though, and we all go through some process that
seems reasonable to us. These important
decisions get extra attention from us because we somehow perceive they will
have consequences more significant to us than most decisions we make every day. So, we are much more deliberate when planning
a vacation than when deciding which football game to watch. We take more time and seek more advice when
buying a house than when buying some fast food.
Yet, we spend much more of our lives making and being affected by those
small, seemingly insignificant decisions we encounter on a daily basis.
In my devotional I jokingly
mentioned the decision to get out of bed every morning. Yet, that is a decision we all have to make
every day. That decision, which hardly
rates a conscious thought on our part, could greatly impact our lives. In Proverbs, Solomon writes, “How long will
you lie there, you sluggard? When will
you get up from your sleep? A little
sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will
come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man” (6:10, 11 NIV). That little decision can easily lead to a
habit, which can lead to a life style, which can lead to severe consequences. Yet, the thousands of small decisions we make
every day are usually arrived at on the basis of what might be called instinct
or conditioning.
God has blessed us with the
ability to perform a myriad of tasks with little or no thought. When I shower I go through a routine
requiring no thought. I do the same
thing every time. Therefore, I can use
that time to think about other matters and not affect the current task in the
slightest. I don’t have to consciously
make a decision to pick up the soap. I
don’t have to debate with myself whether I should wash my hair first or my left
shoulder. Those decisions are made
subconsciously; below my consciousness.
It really is a wonderful gift from God.
But there is a potential problem with this kind of decision-making.
Subconscious decision-making is
arrived at only after a great deal of conscious decision-making. When I first learned to drive a car, I had to
think through every step, from inserting the key into the ignition to parallel
parking. My brain was driving in the
fast lane while I was getting ready to pull away from the curb. I sat through a driver education course. I spent a semester behind the wheel in a
driver training course. I endured hours
of driving with my mother or big brother next to me offering “advice.” I finally got my license and spend many years
learning how to drive in the city, on the freeway, in the snow, on country
roads, in the rain, at slow speeds on curvy roads and fast speeds on super
highways. Today, I can drive without
thinking about driving, as I have occasionally proven while talking on my cell
phone (some states still allow it). Side
note: I am always amazed, after I have been talking on my cell phone, how
little I can remember about the stretch of highway I have just driven. Scary.
I know you think I’ve lost my
train of thought, but I haven’t. Most of
the decisions we make every day are made without conscious thought, based on
previous conditioning or unquestioned emotional or mental impulses. I was reminded of this recently while in the
Crater Lake National Park. I was
people-watching. You know, just looking
at people and wondering who they are and who they think they are. I watched a guy walk by with two friends who
were dressed like typical campers. But
he was dressed in slacks, dress shoes, shirt, tie and sports coat. I think he put plenty of thought into that
outfit because he wanted to be sure to communicate, “I am exceptionally cool.” A thirty-something couple passed by in hiking
shoes, long cargo pants that can be made into shorts by unzipping the lower
half of each leg, lightweight long-sleeved shirts and broad-brimmed, floppy
hats. I believe Patagonia was printed on
something. Maybe not so much thought went into their outfits, because that’s
the way they dress when camping. Then
there was the young woman hiking up the trail wearing nothing but a two-piece
bathing suit, the bottom of which left little to the imagination, if one were
inclined to imagine what her butt looked like. I don’t believe she thought much
about that choice. She is just in the
habit of wearing whatever strikes her fancy. There were dozens of people with tattoos just
about every place one could put a tattoo on the human body. Particularly noticeable were those that
covered entire arms and/or legs. There
was no way I could discern what all the tattoos said or what the pictures were,
unless I asked them to stop for a few minutes so I could examine them more
closely. But I thought maybe the message
was, “I am a tough person,” so I didn’t.
Once a tattoo is inked, no more thought is necessary.
Every time we make a decision
when buying clothes or getting dressed, consciously or subconsciously, we are
making a decision to represent ourselves to everyone else in the world as a
particular kind of person. You know this
is true. If you want people to know
you’re a skater, you dress a certain way.
If you want them to know (or think) you’re a cowboy, you dress a certain
way. What message does a person send if
the choice is made to wear a particular brand of jeans? What if they are clean or dirty? What if they have holes in them? (Buying faded jeans or those with holes
already supplied should be ample evidence that those things are message
related) What message is being
transmitted if that blouse or shirt shows cleavage? Why tear the sleeves off a perfectly good
shirt? I could write a book about messages sent by
the clothes we choose to wear.
This is not a blog about how we
dress. That is just an illustration of
the bigger topic of decision-making. I
could have chosen food intake, television watching, recreational activities, or
I-Tune downloads as illustrations. My
point is we make thousands of decisions every day which are often governed by
our subconscious. Our subconscious is
developed over time by consciously making decisions. So, shouldn’t we be careful, when developing
behaviors new to us, to base even our smallest decisions on those values we
actually hold to be important to us? And
shouldn’t parents be careful to help
their children make these kinds of decisions.
If we do that often enough, those
subconscious decisions will be consistent with our internal values. Caveat: The whole purpose of having the
subconscious decision-making ability is to be able to perform many of our life
functions without analyzing everything.
So, please, don’t agonize over every little thing. It drives the rest of us crazy.
