Decisions

I’ve always been told that I need to listen to my gut. As if my gut is some kind of wise master with vast amounts of secret knowledge that even I am not privy to.

I am very, very suspicious of my gut. Because isn’t my gut just the subconscious spouting haphazardly constructed algorithms from an accumulation of past experiences? What if my experiences are wrong? Memories can be surprisingly unreliable. Just think of all the wrongfully identified criminals. Or that experiment where 25% of people remembered a childhood memory of being lost in a mall they’ve never been to. Yeah, not exactly a stellar resume, gut.

So instead, I like to waste an inordinate amount of time deconstructing every situation and analyzing every option until I am so mind-numbingly exhausted that I just pick the option that my gut was telling me to choose in the first place.

I will say, for the most part, Ms. Gut does end up making pretty decent decisions. So maybe I should give her some credit. I still don’t trust her 100% though.

Side note: How I titled this post reminds me of that Ariana Grande song “Positions” and I cannot unthink it. Also, “gut” no longer feels like a real word.