Back to the Beginning: The Goal of it all, Confidence and Control

 

My Medals (yes I am bragging)

Unfortunately a blog tends to become a series of random thoughts and musings.  Despite of my efforts to avoid this my last couple of blogs have tended to a level of randomness that I am not comfortable with.  So it is back to the beginning.  This weeks entry I am going to discuss decisions and why they are important.  I hope to tie in the previous blogs and provide a framework for the remaining blogs.  I would also like to discuss a few items that I am not trying to promote.

Starting with my final thought, the things I am not promoting.  As I mentioned in my previous blog I am not providing a framework to support or refute a particular point of view.  In making a decision to do assess the validity of information.  If we determine that certain information is inaccurate we simply move on to other sources.  One important element of this is the motives of the person or persons supplying the information.  Motives are irrelevant.  Again, I refer to the video of Jon Stewart and Steve Hanke.

Jon Stewart and Steve Hanke

You do not need to watch this for very long to realize that these are two very different people.  One is an entertainer and the other is an academic.  It also does not take long to determine Jon Stewarts bias in this discussion.  It quickly becomes very clear that his position is that inflation is being caused by corporate greed and excessive profits.  He often uses the phrase "the little guy".  His motives center around being an advocate for this "little guy".  This advocacy could be used to refute any facts and discount any of his arguments.  As an academic Steve Hanke has his own motives as well.  As an academic his career is centered on people accepting and propagating his ideas.  The further his ideas and theories travel the more books he sells, the more grant money, the more speaking engagements and so on.  In short everyone has ulterior motives.  I am interested only in the information.  If I can analyze information and determine its worth to my situation I can safely ignore the source's motives.

Another trap that one can fall into is justification.  There is no need to justify a decision to anyone other than those directly affected by the decision.  Justifying the decision is only important so that you can confidently move forward with the decision.  Covid vaccines are a perfect example.  I decided to get the vaccines and boosters.  I am not going to spend one ounce of effort justifying that decision to someone who did not get the vaccine.

On to decisions.  It would be trivial to say decisions are important.  We make decisions everyday.  some are relatively simple and others are life changing.  Sometimes a seemingly inconsequential decision can have a major impact on our life and the lives of those around us.  Conversely we sometimes put too much emphasis on a decision that ends up having little impact on our lives.  These scenarios are focused on the outcomes of decisions.  Unfortunately all too often a result will occur whether we make a decision or not.  It is not the result that is important.  The process is important.

In taking great care in analyzing information and making a decision one can gain a great deal of confidence and control of ones own life.  This is especially important to me as I begin my retirement years.  I will be the sole architect of all my future decisions.  In retirement there are very few external impediments to my decisions.  Usually work is the biggest one.  How many times do we say I cannot do "X" because of work.  There will always be constraints.  I have saved well but I will have a finite amount of money available.  Health will be an issue as well.  These and other factors will always be part of the decision making process.  It is the confidence and control that is the most important part of decisions.  If a decision leads to a positive outcome great.  If the outcome is negative great too, and then fix it.  Confidence and control is the goal!