Way back when, my father had a friend who would buy a brand-new car every two years or so. Prior to the purchase, Mac would spend hours reading car reviews and then drive from one car dealership to another to take test drives and haggle over price.
Sometimes he would do so for months.
My father would poke fun at the lengthy process, and Mac would say something like this. That he was just making sure he got the best possible deal on the best possible car.
That explanation made sense to me back then but seems impossible to me now.
For I’ve come to realize, as does Harvard University psychology professor Ellen Langer, there’s “an inherent uncertainty in all choices.” Therefore, there’s never any way of absolutely knowing if a decision is right or not.
I first had an inkling of this after a few years teaching eighth graders and sharing a personal story with them as a way to introduce Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.” During my first year of teaching at Palmerton, you see, I had an offer quite unexpectedly to coach the boys’ high school basketball team and teach 10th grade English at a Schuylkill County school the following year.
How the opportunity came to be is an interesting story in itself, but all you need to know is the superintendent made it clear that teaching there long term was contingent upon my success as the b-ball coach. Primarily because of that, I turned the job down.
Before telling my students all this, however, I’d explain to them that one of the reasons why I became an English teacher was to coach high school basketball. So after telling them about rejecting the offer, I’d ask their opinion if remaining in Palmerton had been the right decision or not.
A rather lively discussion would usually follow, and I’d end it by explaining why I shared my story. Because the poem we’d read next illustrates the domino effect caused by any decision, which makes judging whether any decision is ultimately a right or wrong one really difficult.
While an eighth grader is likely to be disheartened to hear that, you should feel liberated by it. For it means, as Langer asserts in The Mindful Body (Ballantine Books, 2023), any decision is the right decision if you “play it” as exactly that.
Playing it that way, she explains, not only makes sense because your brain is not an “omnipotent supercomputer,” but also because in today’s world “there is no natural endpoint to the amount of information [to] consider.” In essence, here’s what Langer says is of the essence: “Don’t try to make the right decision, make the decision right.”
When taken out of context, this saying sounds as Pollyannaish as the last line from the last page of the picture book that’s your four-year-old’s favorite. That’s just one of the reasons why I advise you to read Langer’s book from cover to cover.
But the saying is true and why I continually remind you that if you’re really serious about achieving optimal health and fitness, the most important thing you need to do is experiment, experiment, experiment. Not exactly in the same manner as a scientific researcher, though you can base your experimentation upon theirs.
Let’s say, for instance, that your last annual health-and-wellness checkup showed your triglyceride level is high, your HDL is low, and your blood pressure is the same as last time. Borderline high.
Which means you’re right on the borderline of being diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, and that, according to the American Heart Association, places you at a “higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and diseases related to fatty buildups in artery walls.” As a result, you decide to go on a diet to improve all those conditions and drop a bit of belly fat.
When you’ve dieted in the past, however, counting calories hasn’t worked, so this time you decide to follow a time-restricted one. From the information you gather about them, fasting for 16 hours, eating during the other eight, and having your last morsel by midday works best, but with your current work schedule doing that seems impossible.
So what are you to do?
What Monique Richard, MS, RDN, LDN, a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Nutrition-In-Sight, offers to Medical News Today in response to a new study that shows a 16-hour fast and eating your last meal by mid-day is best for what you’re hoping to accomplish. That a “consistent eating window, whether 8, 10, or 12 hours, that fits your lifestyle and sleep schedule is more important than picking an arbitrary number.”
It’s a belief that aligns nicely with Langer’s views on decision making, and one that allows you to make a ‘right’ decision without indecision.
