Avoid Allowing Your Self-Image-Powered Autopilot to Make Major Decisions
This is one of the most important takeaways from this guide.
Most people live their lives almost completely on autopilot. If you do not make a concerted effort to think critically, your default self-image-powered autopilot will dictate not only your emotional reactions and the information you internalize, but also your major life decisions.
To better understand what this looks like, let us consider James. James gets an email from a friend requesting he join their trip to climb Kilimanjaro. If James determines his response while on autopilot, he will subconsciously ask himself: “Am I the type of person who would say yes when asked by a friend to climb Kilimanjaro?”
Assuming James sees himself as an erudite, well-traveled, adventurous, reliable friend, his autopilot will almost certainly lead him to say, “Yes!”
Were James to instead act pragmatically and submit this question to his higher cognitive functions, testing it against his objective function and ideological tree, his thought process would look quite different. He would think: “What will I/the world gain if I climb Kilimanjaro? What is lost if I climb Kilimanjaro? Can I logically justify the money and time I will spend on this trip? How many children could live a year on the money I am going to spend on this indulgence? Can I justify the tradeoff? Does climbing this mountain contribute to my objective function? Will spending days climbing up an arduous trail even make me happy?”
Being cognizant that we all default to the autopilot method for making decisions can substantially improve our lives by helping us (1) shake ourselves into a moment of lucidity when we realize we are about to make a major decision and (2) better model how those around us will likely react at decision points in their lives. By understanding how other people see themselves, we can predict their actions and reactions with a high degree of certainty.