Decision time

Turn on the bright lights

Here’s a rule for universally measured decision-making that’s as simple as night and day. Phone aside, you’re probably harnessing your environment to focus your attention and make the best choices about your long-term happiness in the most intuitive ways already. It’s what people have been doing since the dawn of time. 

The best decisions – however small – build incremental gains. And although it’s not an exact science, the choice to take your decisions outside in daylight will always be a good one.

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Morning sunshine 

Our attention is directed by our environment and we work within our circadian rhythms. That natural cortisol rush in the morning, when we’re exposed to daylight. Light is your cue to get outside. Even if you need three pairs of socks to feel your toes.

Below broad open skies, your pupils get smaller as they react towards an abundance of light. Beyond four walls, peripheral vision expands. Clarity pushes comprehension outwards and outside of ourselves. This is the optimal time to train our attention empathetically. 

The internal maze

In darkness, your pupils search for light, for orientation. You look inward and the internal maze opens wide. Shadows become longer, more powerful and there’s an oddness to it all. Give darkness over to introspection, exploration and otherness. 

Accept everything as it slows. Revel in the softening of forms, the shadows. Shadows of ourselves reflect back who we are. This is the optimal time to be at peace (or work to reconcile) with what makes us whole.

The lighthouse 

Ideas come often at dusk but decisions are to be made in the light. It’s why they say never sleep on an argument – you lose a good night’s rest and nothing is resolved in the dark. Without light, feelings can expand like oil spilled over the ocean.

Keep big decisions for the daylight. And remember that not making a decision is a decision in itself; A decision to stick with the status quo. 

Timing of your choices is key in a broader context, but the light levels when you make that final call can also nudge the steer of your boat. 

“Who can really say how decisions are made, how emotions change, how ideas arise? We talk about inspiration; about a bolt of lightning from a clear sky, but perhaps everything is just as simple and just as infinitely complex as the processes that make a particular leaf fall at a particular moment. That point has been reached, that's all. It has to happen, and it does happen.”

John Ajvide Lindqvist, Harbour

Always wait for daylight, or search for light. Even if you don’t need it to navigate, light opens up your sense of freedom and agency, illuminating better the reality of what’s already there. 

Your decision is bound both to the simplicity and infinite complexity of what makes a leaf fall, and you can’t see a leaf fall in the dark.