a bad decision

 

Have you ever thought about how you think?

It may sound silly at first; but this question, along with many other questions that are essential for knowing more about yourself, would definitely be at the very top of the list of importance.

How can you be so certain of what you want to do?

Isn’t it just all science at the end of the day?

Signals racing back and forth in your brain, electrical energy right in the cortex?

However by drawing that conclusion I am being close-minded and dismissing the very concept of free will.

It would also be nothing other than tragic to discover that all the decisions I’ve made up to this day have only been because of some random hormone in my brain.

Love found, and that joy.

Love lost, and that pain.

It would be terrible if I knew the only reason I felt a certain way I feel about someone was because some hormone dictates my actions and thoughts to do so.

So while we all ponder on the existence of free will subconsciously, hear me out on why I had a slight nag in the back of my mind thinking that it may not.

Haven’t we all had that moment where you think, “why did I just do that?”

I am willing to bet that everyone can relate to this common and imperfect human moment in life, where one realizes that the consequence of doing X outweighs the sickening thrill you may enjoy for a split second at time of X.

In other words; you jump off a bridge, break your neck and end up hospitalized for a long while.

How long? So long that your mom got married twice.

However upon discharge you decide to go jump again, reassured by the fact that you jumped at the wrong angle the first time around.

For example; (to name a few)

When you look at abusive relationships and wonder what goes through that girl’s head when she’s still with that son-of-a-duck.

You wonder why you failed your exams, when the night before you were drinking a whole bottle of vodka on your own.

You also wonder in disbelief at how come it is that nothing ever good happens after 2AM and yet you decide that it’s okay to stay out till the sun comes out.

It’s nearing the end of my exchange and I wish I can say I left this country with a bang but of course life isn’t perfect, and after many mistakes and ‘i-am-an-idiot’ realizations and late confirmation, I am back at square one of major emotional insecurity.

It’s okay though, because this time I actually thought and considered about learning from my mistakes.

So what is it?

What makes us humans aware of the right thing to do but ignoring it blatantly and jumping off that cliff anyway?

Making this mistake of mine I realized something.

I’m an idiot.

Nay, I confirmed that I am an idiot.

This thought in my mind has been growing since the start of this week and after almost a short novel of private blogging, I realize that I couldn’t do it.

I wanted to write/summarize all my thoughts into one blog that I’d post on this site because going through this (no matter how much I try to deny it) , is and always will be a part of my experience here in Japan.

Question: What drives April to write a long and boring blog about decision making?

Answer: A bad decision.

I’ve been analyzing the shitty way I think.

I always do this when something goes wrong but something different occurred this time and it was the desire to change.

This desire is growth in itself as a direct result of my being here in Japan.
(thinking like this makes me somewhat feel better about myself.)
"it was an experience"
"it's good to learn from my mistakes."

I give you three choices of ice cream.
Strawberry, Chocolate, and Vanilla.

You can only choose one.

Say you picked vanilla.

Why did you pick vanilla?

“Because it’s my favourite,” you’d reply, thinking all the while that I’m a moron for asking.

“Because I hate vanilla and your face”, would be the reply of my charming Canadian friend.

What made you come to that decision though?

Homo Sapiens are set apart from all the other animals in the animal kingdom simply because our brains are evolved in a way in which we can use both rationality and emotion to make decisions for ourselves.

The way in which our brains have evolved from that of a monkey or a squirrel is the fact that we have control over everything.

We have mental power over what the physical may impose upon.

When we are hungry, our brain would send a message to tell you to eat.

For an animal, it would then do anything to obtain food; just because it’s brain has told it to do so in order for it to survive.

For us humans; we would also scramble for food. (at least I would.)

But you would definitely not see any scrambling or eating in some weight watchers club despite the hunger signals being transmitted around the place.

Our cortex, a part of the brain in which we make decisions by; has ultimate control over the simple yet vital parts of the brain that we overlook on a daily basis.

What we do not realize however; is the danger in which this leads to when we use it incorrectly.

Why do people tell you to either think with your head or your heart?

Basically this means to separate rationality from emotion, and outweigh the pro’s and con’s of a certain undecided matter.

“If I drink 12 shots of vodka on an empty stomach, I possibly might not remember anything the next morning.”

“If I refrain from drinking and just go to bed before 2AM, I can and will remember everything the next morning.”

Stuff like that ;p

However, it’s quite incorrect to instruct one to remove all emotion from any type of decision making because after some geeky research in a few book shops and on the internet;

Little do we know that all decisions, including the most rational and logical of decisions, all coincide with emotion.

A study was conducted with a patient whom had brain surgery, and although a small part of his right cortex was removed a large part remained intact.

Doctors weren’t too worried about this because they knew that he’d still be logical and rational; thus being able to make decisions and be his own person.

That being said, a few weeks later, his wife brought him in for a checkup and complained that he was being indecisive and…irrational.

After lots of experiments and trials later; the conclusion was rather horrifying yet surreal at the same time.

Given a diary and asked to pick a day in which he’d like to go see a movie, the end result involved calculating the possibilities of meteorite crashes into Manhattan and World War III occurring the night of a certain day.

It was quite clear. The dude could not make a bloody decision.

These were the extremities in his decision making.

However, many other cases also showed similar results in which the patient had a huge inability to make decisions despite their rationality being completely sane.

It was then realized that without emotion; we cannot make decisions.

Emotion drives intuition, which ultimately is the final stage in our decision making.

Because believe it or not, to pick Fruit Loops or Coco Pops for breakfast is not entirely a rational decision, but also an emotional one.

(clearly leaning toward a more emotional one because having those cereals for breakfast is a straight road for diabetes.)

Rationality and emotion both working together to make even a terrible decision in which you would protest and say “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think about it,”- is a really scary thought.

One being that you can never say you weren’t completely aware of the damage that one mistake might have caused, and two being that men and women aren’t so different after all.

However as I read further along the results of this trial, I realized that although emotion and rationality was of course necessary for decision making, we all have something wonderful and intangible in our minds that no great scientist has yet found the answer to.

That, my fellow imaginary readers, is intuition.

What gives the pilot who is landing a crashing plane, or the soccer player gunning it for the winning goal, or a policeman in the heat of a crazed chase, the time to actually weigh out the pros and cons and confidently say they analyzed every single option available in the time frame given?

In all these situations, the time frame is usually less than a few seconds, if not a millisecond.

In all these situation, all of them would probably answer when questioned how they ‘knew’ what to do, with a ‘I just knew.’

So did I know?

Did I have any idea that this would happen?

No. I didn’t know.

My intuition did not save me from myself, and although what’s been done has been done, I still wonder if things were to have gone differently.

What if I thought for a split second that maybe, just maybe, I was being irrational?

Old habits die hard and this time I surprised no one and thought with all my emotion and neglected logic.

And just like we need emotion to make decisions, we definitely cannot neglect rationality either.

Going back to the ice cream example;

How did you know to associate vanilla with something you like?

Dopamine Neurons, my lovely non-existent blog readers, is like the happy drug you wish that you can take when your heart breaks over that certain someone yet again.

It’s like that one crazy friend that you know you’d want around forever but is a semi- bad influence on you.

Your brain releases a ton of this dopamine hormone that your receptors will then learn to associate X object with happiness.

So whenever you see vanilla ice cream?

Dopamine is released, and your brain tells you to eat some, because it’ll make you happy.

Dopamine isn’t just the happy hormone; it’s also the love hormone, and believe it or not, the angry hormone too.

Dopamine in general is associated with passion.

Therefore, you fall in love, and you associate that feeling with happiness.

Love is lost; and your brain will automatically notice the difference in the dopamine hormone that fire around your body when something reminds you of your significant other.

You fall out of love; and become indifferent.

This is where the absence of dopamine takes place and you don’t feel anything.

This is also why the opposite of love is not hate but indifference.

Dopamine is a hormone that is both wonderful and scary.

After another geeky search at the expense of my host family’s internet, I stumbled upon an experiment that highlighted the danger of dopamine.

A bunch of rats being exposed to an over-dose of dopamine neglected doing simple tasks like drinking and eating because they were simply in utter bliss; despite hunger, and despite starvation, and inevitably, death.

Who knew you can get addicted to happiness?

Although dopamine has the capability to give us feelings in which you feel you can conquer the world;

You are also faced with being too happy; and we all know that being too happy leads to the complete disregard of anything else significant in your life.

Looking at a completely scientific point of view, the reason why us humans repeat the same mistakes again and again is thus made very clear upon discovery of the dopamine drug/hormone and it’s many effects on humans.

The thrill we received from making the mistake prior to the consequence faced released a ton of dopamine into our brain.

We then crave for this feeling.

The thrill, the ride.

I think I associated happiness with my decision to make that mistake for some screwed up reason.

The familiarity of my surroundings, and all the built up emotion in me lead me to do what I did.

But no matter how much I analyze my mistake(s), and no matter how much I search desperately for a reason as to why I did what I did; I cannot undo it.

I can blame everything but myself all I want, but we all know that doing that is just being cowardly.

This blog is probably a pathetic excuse for myself to feel more secure emotionally.

To feel less alone, perhaps.

We of course; cannot alter the ending unless we are still within the pages of a story but unfortunately,

my book has already closed.

Yesterday is gone, and it won’t come back to me.

I hope I can move on; because holding on hurts.

I’ll go at my own pace, because if I try and rush nature…

Well, look where we are now.

So 11 more sleeps in Japan, and 10 come tomorrow morning.

Come tomorrow though; I’m going to try and show everyone (mostly myself) what I need to prove desperately to save any dignity I may have left.

That is; I’m still me despite all the mess.

Sure, I am an emotional roller coaster ride right now but; I’ve made it through,

And I’m still me.

Me being a very vague and blurry image of someone I used to know; but definitely cannot wait to return to being again.

All my love always,

April