Decision-Making

People either use heuristics and short-cuts in decision-making or they systematically process the merits and demerits of a given argument.

Heuristics include our own emotions as we ask ‘How do I feel about this?’ although this can cause a problem where we mix up the cause and effect of our emotions.

Systematic processing is more likely when:

1. Careful thought is likely to generate judgment confidence.
2. The message is uncertain or unexpected and more thought is needed to work out what it means. 
3. The message is particularly relevant to the person, such as when it is about them personally or about their goals or interests.
4. The person does not agree with the message or feels threatened, and is seeking to resist any persuasive attempts.

Example

When asked to donate to a charity I will quickly dig into my pocket. If asked to help more actively, I will think about it more carefully.

Use it

Embed heuristics and trite statements in a peripherally-aimed speech and there’s a good chance they will get through.

One last thing

When things are important do not use short-cut decision-making, especially if others are encouraging you to do so.


TJ

Kristofferson - Great Songwriter

Who's To Bless And Who's To Blame

If a cheated man's a loser
And a cheater never wins
And if beggars can't be choosers
'Til they're weak and wealthy men

And the old keep gettin' older
And the young must do the same
And it's never gettin' better
Who's to bless, and who's to blame

All the cards are on the table
You done laid your money down
Don't complain about your chances, boy
It's the only game in town

And the meaning doesn't matter
Nor the way you play the game
To the winner or the loser
Who's to bless, and who's to blame

Keep your hands above the table
And your back against the wall
Toss your chips in with your chances, boy
Let 'em lay the way they fall

Cause the moral doesn't matter
Broken rules are all the same
To the broken or the breaker
Who's to bless, and who's to blame

Kris Kristofferson 1975

 

tj

Perfect Relationships

The trouble with human relationships is that man without God does not realize that all men are sinful, and so he hangs too much on his personal relationships, and they crush and break.

No love affair between a man and a woman has ever been great enough to hang everything on. It will crumble away under your feet. And as the edges begin to break away the relationship is destroyed.

But when I am a creature in the presence of God, and I see that the last relationship is with an infinite God, and these human relationships are among equals, I can take from a human relationship what God meant it to provide, without putting the whole structure under an intolerable burden.

More than this, when I acknowledge that none of us are perfect in this life, I can enjoy that which is beautiful in a relationship, without expecting it to be perfect.

 But most of all, I must recognize that no human relation-ships are going to be finally sufficient. The finally sufficient relationship must be with God himself. 

As Christians we have this relationship, and so our human relationships can be valid without being the finally sufficient thing. As sinners, acknowledging that we are not perfect in this life, we do not need to cast away every human relationship, including the relationship of marriage, or the relationships of Christians inside the Church, just because they prove not to be perfect. 

On the basis of the finished work of Christ it is possible, once I have seen this, to begin to understand that my relationships can be substantially healed in the present life. When two Christians find that their relationship has hit a wall, they can come hand-in-hand and bring their failures under the blood of Christ, and get up again and go on. 

Think what this means practically in the areas of human relationships, in marriage, in the Church, the parent-child relationships, the employer-employee relationship.
Or we can put it in yet another way. 

The Christian is to be a demonstration of the existence of God. But if we as individual Christians, and as the Church, act on less than a personal relationship to other men, where is the demonstration that God the Creator is personal? 

If there is no demonstration in our attitude toward other men that we really take seriously the person-to- person relationship, we might as well keep quiet. 

There must be a demonstration; that is our calling: to show that there is a reality in personal relationship, and not just words about it. If the individual Christian, and if the Church of Christ, is not allowing the Lord Jesus Christ to bring forth his fruit into the world, as a demonstration in the area of personal relationships, we cannot expect the world to believe.

Lovelessness is a sea which knows no shore, for it is what God is not. And eventually not only will the other man drown, but I will drown, and worst of all, the demonstration of God drowns as well when there is nothing to be seen but a sea of lovelessness and impersonality. 

As Christians, we are not to be in fellowship with false doctrine. But in the very midst of the battle against false teaching, we must not forget the proper personal relationships.

Each time I see something wrong in others, it is dangerous, for it can exalt self, and when this happens, my open fellowship with God falls to the ground. 

So when I am right, I can be wrong. In the midst of being right, if self is exalted, my fellowship with God can be destroyed. It is not wrong to be right, but it is wrong to have the wrong attitude in being right, and to forget that my relationship with my fellowmen must always be personal. 

If I really love a man as I love myself, I will long to see him be what he could be on the basis of Christ's work, for that is what I want or what I should want for myself on the basis of Christ's work. 

And if it is otherwise, not only is my communication with the man broken, but my communication with God as well. 

For this is sin, breaking the second commandment to love my neighbor as myself.


Francis Schaeffer "True Spirituality"
tj

It's already too late...

When you were born, you could have been anybody. So quick and malleable, your parents could look at your face and see a future president. They tried to mold you as you grew, but they could only work with what they had. And when their tools stopped working, they slowly handed off to you, asking, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" There's a certain art to becoming who you are. 

A teenage personality is a delicate medium, its emotions are almost too heavy to handle. You have to keep yourself together, and tease out the good parts without stretching yourself too thin. You can never stop moving for too long, or focus on just one side of your personality, or you'll fall out of balance, and never stand on your own two feet. 

You can't ignore your flaws-you see them so clearly-but you can't just fix them either, and force yourself to change. And you need to make it look effortless, even if you keep getting burned. But the toughest thing to master is the sense that your personality is hardening over time. That the fire that kept you flexible all these years is dimming, and you're becoming set in your ways. 

You can still recall the heat of youth, that once kept you warm on a dingy couch, or a night in the wilderness, or a wandering summer. At any given time you remained untouchable, because you were 'not yourself today.' You knew that you weren't just you, you were also the person you will one day become, finding comfort in the lines, "I am not I. I am the one walking beside me...who stays calm and silent while I talk, and forgives, gently, when I hate, who walks where I am not, who will remain standing when I die." 

But now it's hard to deny that you are anyone but yourself; you are who you are, for better or for worse. For all your wondering what kind of person you were going to become, somewhere you forgot that question actually has an answer, and that 'one day' will soon arrive, if it hasn't already. Now you wonder if you can change, even if you wanted to. 

If you have enough fire in the belly to surprise yourself. Or if you're too tough and cynical to stretch without shattering. Of course, maybe who you are is just fine, and dreaming of being someone else would only keep you from being your best self. Or maybe that doesn't really matter.

Maybe it's already too late...


tj