Indecisiveness: Do you also suffer from it

A few days ago my colleague, a very fine gentleman, confessed to me that he in unable to make up his mind and keep thinking about the issue at hand endlessly.

Haven’t we all suffered from this indecisiveness from time to time and for many of us it is an ongoing affair. We seek counsel from others for right course of action. It is not that they know any better, or can guarantee a positive outcome. I am not saying we should not consult with people who have more experience in life. My point is that many of these people have no time to understand you better, your situation, your conditioning in the past, baggage that you may be carrying on you from past. They have their own set of issues in life perhaps. It is rare to find someone with a large heart and deep empathy to hear your story and guide you to right path. 

Not to say that such people do not exist. I would rather go to a good friend, esp. who I grew up with, to chat up. They are a strong anchor in our lives. You share your issues and they theirs with you and both feel light. You may not come up with what is right for you but you both will be filled with some confidence to take it on.

I have personally gone through this period when I over thought, lost clarity of purpose, battled with insecurities on a daily basis. It is not that I do not have my own set of challenges now, but I stand my ground. We will talk about it some other day.

Our life is made up of the choices we made in the past and it will be shaped, in future, by what we choose today. At the core of every decision lie our own desire and the fear. When desires for the fruits outweigh the fear of failure, we make a decision. If we are gripped with fear of loss, rejection, stigma of failure, we freeze.

Let us keep the equation of greed and fear aside in making material decisions. It is relatively a mathematical concept.

I wish to address our emotional stability in taking decisions. After all, it is our own mind that assigns the weight on the Desires and it is the same mind that will project the fears to be larger than life. How do we not end up as a deer caught in the headlights?

What do Yogic scriptures say about 'Decision making process'?

At this stage, you will perhaps not mind if I share with you what yogic scriptures say about our mind and how it makes decisions. I read up quite a bit on this and heard various expositions on it. Here’s the summary. 

Our mind as per Yogic scriptures is made up of four parts or let us say it has four aspects. Manas (the instinctive mind), Chitta (i.e. Consciousness), Buddhi (i.e. Intellect) and Ahamkara (i.e. Ego)

We loosely refer to mind as our brain. But as per scriptures, mind is a larger store of memory from millions of years, stored in each cell of your body. Your DNA is written on each cell of your body and that is where huge amount of memory is stored. Observe, when your entire being is filled with positivity when you feel strongly about something, that is each cell of your body approving of you. Brain is a partial representation of mind. 

It all begins with Manas to create a desire or throw an idea. Chitta or your consciousness broods over it and debates on the idea. It does ‘Chintan’ or reflects upon it. When it gets tired, it goes to Buddhi , our intellect. Intellect is our reasoning faculty. It will present logic. Gathers data, narrows down the choices, suggests its pros and cons, dissects the situation and gives you a YES or a NO. 

It is at this stage, our own Ahamkara which is defined as our Identity in scriptures not as a negative concept of Ego alone. What we identify ourselves with, is our Ahamkara. Our set of beliefs, conditioning by society, religion, education, nationality etc. Makes up for our Ego. It competes with Manas again and creates confusion. This is a cycle. You may have gone through this exercise when selecting a home or a car. You will do all sort of research, gets tired and in the end select the one which your mind told you to buy in the first place. And immediately after owning it, you go through dissonance and seek approval from others.

Why do some people make better decisions than others?

Given that this is how our mental construct is, in decision making. How is it that some people seem superior to others in making sound decisions. How can you too have this knack? Read on.

Secret lies in Confidence. Our own confidence gets shattered over time with failed decisions. We begin to doubt ourselves. It is a spiral of negativity. We will see more on darker side of things first. On the other hand, too much of confidence can fool us into taking rash decisions as well.

Given, you do not know beforehand if the outcome of a decision will be favourable. It is an uncharted territory. What happens when it is pitch dark on the road, you have your high beam on in the car. You do not see more than 100 meters on the road; you slow down, right? It is natural to take small steps and gain confidence in the process.

However to remain on elevated levels of confidence, one needs to boost the self-esteem as well. It is not going to come from false affirmation that you keep chanting. Self esteem is boosted by honing your skills, enriching yourself constantly in your field of work. It is very important to believe that what you do makes a difference to the lives of others i.e. you have a thing of value that you offer. Cheating and dodging will hurt your self-esteem every time.

Lastly, if you are not giving back to society, to nature, doing your own bit to undo some of the wrongs you are doing to the planet. Acting selflessly and doing a bit of philanthropy. Doing a random act of kindness to a stranger or simply offering the gift of soft speech to others. All of these offer tremendous boost to your Own Confidence and self esteem. Walk this path and  soon clarity emerges. 

You will find that you are okay with the outcome and can live with the consequences of your decisions. Even if they go bad or unfavourable, you will not hesitate to make newer decisions. Trying again is winning!

Love and Peace,

Nitin Om Patnia

Disclaimer: The author works as a financial advisor in India. The views expressed here are completely his own and are a collective wisdom of numerous humans that co-exist or existed before the author. The author claims no right of originality of ideas but would like to assert the right to his style of writing. There is no intent to hurt anyone's sentiments with his opinions. It is just an honest expression by the author to help anyone who may be benefited from his writings. And a medium to express his gratitude to all who contributed to bless the author with wisdom. Most of all to his spiritual master, Om Swami, in bestowing wisdom and grace.