14 Words

Posted on March 4, 2022 by Jordan Dessauer

Today on Election Day, we as American’s get to illustrate our freedom of choice. We make that choice through a decision. We come to that decision through a process. We often beat ourselves up over tough decisions that we have to make.  Understand the process that we go through, and you can make better decisions. Believe it or not, it comes down to 14 words when we make a decision. (More on that later)

Decision comes from the Latin word decisio, meaning a cutting off. To make a decision we literally are cutting off any other possibility at that moment. It is such an abrupt definition. I think in making decisions, we do just that. We cut off choices we could have made that we think are not the best for us at that moment.

Does that mean that we make mistakes in our decisions sometimes? Yes, we as a species, are self aware of the decisions and the outcomes. We are geared to not only analyze our choices of action before we make our decision, but also after. That is what makes us different from any other species that has inhabited our planet.

As humans we all make mistakes. Our choices, through decision, sometimes are not the best. Its what we do with the results of our decisions that defines who we are. Do we take time to analyze our mistakes so that we can learn from them? I have tried to implement the ability to adjust to mistakes more rapidly. It is usually not our decision that is the root of the problem, so much as how we made our decision.

How we make decisions is often the factory of good and bad decisions. What does your mind go through in making a decision? What do you feel? Do you think about the past or the future? What are the risks involved? Do you consider what people may think of you? Those are some of the things you go through in the analyzation of a decision. This process is called decision theory.

In analyzing our decision theory, or how we make decisions, we can start to take the steps necessary to improve our decisions. Have you ever made a decision only to realize you have made a mistake? Maybe you made exactly the right choice? If you go back to the roots of that decision, or the decision theory you used, you can usually boil it down to one of fourteen things. We base every decision we make on fourteen thoughts and/or actions. You will recognize the first word as “The Seven Deadly Sins” and the second word as “The Seven Heavenly Virtues,” as their counterpart.

They are:

1.     Lust/Temperance

2.    Gluttony/Wisdom

1.    Greed/Mercy

2.    Sloth/Justice

3.    Wrath/Love

4.    Envy/Strength

5.    Pride/Truth

Between those fourteen words, our decisions are made. When we use decision theory in our minds, I wonder how much time we think of the meanings of these words?

We are programmed to make choices as we go. We don’t really think about why we are making those choices. Sometimes we combine our reasons for making a decision and we don’t even know it. We act accordingly. (See below)

I have an exercise for you that I think will be interesting. See if you can put together twenty-one things for the counterparts of the “Seven Deadly Sins” like you see on the note card above. Write out the same 3×5 card full of the Seven Heavenly Virtues. I think you will discover something amazing. Its Hard! I tried for about an hour and I could not come up with twenty-one things without getting help.

What if we could come up with that list all the time before we make decisions? Think what that would do for business. Would we need the Wall Street reform we are currently going through? How would that change the bottom-line for companies? Would we have better products? I think that if we boil society down we all could use that exercise. All wars, hate and evil might just be a thing of the past. The question is, are we that humane? Think what the world would be like if we were able to describe humanities actions by that!

“Remember, wealth has nothing to do with money, success has everything to do with failure, and life is as simple as you make it.” -John Dessauer