The ultimate decision-making question

What if this is the last year you live? To what degree would the decisions you make change? A question to think about when it comes to decision-making — it could be the “ultimate” decision-making question.

When something happens for the last time, we usually do not know it’s the last time.

One key reason decision-making feels challenging is our tendency to view life as a long-term game filled with unknowns. This perspective often makes clear thinking feel impossible. We face countless potential future outcomes, and it's difficult to predict the timing and impact of our current choices.

So, many people have developed decision-making prompts and exercises as an attempt to reduce cognitive overwhelm and facilitate decision-making (e.g., Fear setting, RAPID).

These are containers that can be useful when not considered the truth. The glass of water is not water itself. You can chew on it if you want, but beware you won’t quench your thirst.

One downside of using questions, prompts, and hypothetical scenarios is that it can be difficult to fully get into a state of mind where you can immerse yourself in it and find the answer. Nothing is real until it is. This is not the last year of your life, unless it is. And for the vast majority of alive people, that’s the reality.

Getting into the mindset of fully experiencing what it feels like to make a decision with only a few months or days left is challenging. Imagination has its limits, which can vary based on your level of Openness to Experience, as defined by the Big Five personality framework, recognized as one of the most reliable personality assessments available.

Therefore you may always be constrained by your imagination potential and ability to not let future ruminations affect your decision-making state. You see how many factors there are at play here. All as real and as false as it gets, at the same time.

Let’s assume being able to deeply understand the question "What would you do if this is the last month/year of your life?" Even achieving a partial understanding - let's say between 40% and 60% - can be valuable. This level of awareness can significantly help shift your perspective and help you envision how you might make decisions in such a situation.

Then there are other factors at play — for example, how low-mood or depressed are you at that moment? How much do you care about yourself vs. others? How much do you naturally tend to optimize for short-term gratification vs. long-term rewards? And many other items on the list.

All these things will have an impact on the decision-making process and answer, which are both fundamentally internal processes, but they are inherently influenced by externalities because of the nature of beings.

In this altered state of consciousness, you may gain clarity about the right decision. When you find it, you'll know - the right choice often manifests as a physical sensation. It's like a wave of relief that begins deep within and flows throughout your entire body.

Then it’s a whole body yes, as the Conscious Leadership Group would put it. It’s an imperfect decision in all likelihood because of the nature of things, but it is a decision nonetheless. Moving is better than standing still in suffering and insecurity, or so it seems.

Movement is life. Lack of movement is stagnation and eventually death.