“AI does the work. We humans have to decide. And now far more often!”
(Richard Seidl)
Artificial intelligence has already taken over a lot of our everyday life, or at least helps us with it. It sorts our email, recommends music and potential partners, reworks our websites, writes and revises code, spots patterns,… But one thing is still left to us: making decisions. And paradoxically, that is more exhausting today than ever. What helps me is stoicism, because its principles bring more clarity and focus to my decisions.
Why Decisions Cost More Energy Today
Brain activity takes a lot of energy. Most of it, anyway. That’s why clever evolution has always made sure energy-saving mechanisms are built in everywhere and our brain runs in idle mode. Classic example: driving a car. You hardly have to think anymore, it just runs, and you can spend some of the saved energy cursing the other drivers or the red light or both.
Too Many Options
On top of that, our pursuit of freedom, globalization and individualism leaves us with far more options than we need. It’s no longer black and white. No, now there are shades of gray and colors too. And everywhere. Thousands of phone models to choose from, millions of apps (have you picked the right task manager or notes app yet? There’s always a better one ;-)), a full closet, a splintered political scene. We spend more time on Netflix choosing a movie than watching it (even though, or precisely because, the AI already serves us personalized trailers). The AI world is a nice example too. Do I use ChatGPT today, Perplexity, Claude… or maybe a local LLM for a change? Oh look, there’s a new model, not bad either. So which one do I take now?
Consequences
Keeping track of the consequences of our decisions is almost impossible today, too. We never know what effect a choice will have. And in the long run, we can’t even begin to estimate it. Everything is far too fast and far too interconnected. Who could possibly still make the “right” decision?
Why AI Makes Decision Stress Worse
There are nice ways to recover from the agony of choice: gardening, for example, or, if you’d rather stay inside, tidying up your desktop, sorting email, mulling over a blog post,…
But this is exactly where the new world steps in. Texts get summarized automatically. Files are sorted away as if by magic, emails are drafted, and outside the robot mower does its rounds. What’s left for us is to review the results and… decide. Nonstop: decision, decision, decision. Phew… exhausting, isn’t it? How can we deal with that?
How Stoicism Helps with Decision Making
For years, sometimes more, sometimes less intensively, I’ve followed the ideas and philosophy of stoicism. This collection of principles, virtues and thoughts goes back to great thinkers such as Zeno of Citium, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, and I think it matters more today than ever. The details would go too far here, but the three most important stoic principles apply really well to making decisions:
- Things you can control vs. things you can’t: focus on your own actions and let go of externals
- Practicing the virtues: wisdom, courage, moderation, justice
- Acceptance: a sense of responsibility, calm, willingness to learn
Again and again, this helps me step out of the decision madness and bring more clarity and focus to my decisions.
