"Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile." ~Bertrand Russel Are there decisions you are delaying? Decisions you go back and forth on? Decisions where you can't quite commit to the definitive path forward? What you don't know, or may not entirely be aware, is that this indecision permeates throughout your whole life. In the 1930s, in his book, The Conquest of Happiness, Bertrand laid our his proposal for what was making us unhappy, and in this he identified the fatigue of indecision.
Read The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russel
Hunter Powers: Welcome to the ONE. I am Hunter Powers broadcasting live from our nation's capital, Washington DC. Today's ONE idea is, "Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile." This quote comes from Bertrand Russell from his book, The Conquest Of Happiness, published in 1930.
Hunter Powers: Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher. He started publishing his work in the late 1800's, and then all the way up to 1950 when he received the Nobel prize in literature. It was in 1930 that he published, The Conquest Of Happiness, which is where our quote comes from today. In The Conquest Of Happiness, Bertrand tries to diagnose why people are unhappy with modern life. You have so much more than what we once have, yet you're still unhappy. Why? And so he goes through a number of different potential reasons, and attempts to diagnose them. Some of these include competition, boredom, excitement, envy, what he calls persecution mania, fear of public opinion, and fatigue.
Hunter Powers: While this was written in 1930, there is still a tremendous amount of relevance to today, but I would also guess that if you read it in 1830, you would say exactly the same thing. Coming down to that idea that we always think that our time is different and it's never been exactly like this before, but there's a lot of pattern and repetition there, and while yes, this exact combination is new, the pattern is not new.
Hunter Powers: And so one of the chapters in, The Conquest Of Happiness, is on fatigue and that is where our quote, our one idea for today comes from, that, "Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile." And we will ask ourselves, what does this mean? Do we agree with it, and how can we use it? "Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile."
Hunter Powers: Let's start with indecision. The wavering between two or more possible courses of action, the irresolution, the inability to decide one clear path forward, to make a decision, to take a stand, and that nothing is so exhausting as indecision. And exhausting, meaning to use up all your physical energy. So this idea that the wavering between these possible courses of action, which happens in your mind, is completely physically exhausting, and it sucks you of all of your energy.
Hunter Powers: "Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile," so completely ineffective. Serving no useful purpose. Stated slightly differently, nothing completely drains you of all your physical energy like wavering back and forth between two possible courses of action, and nothing could be more ineffective or serve less of a purpose. Of course, Bertrand said it much better and much simpler, "Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile." That is what it means. But do we agree with it?
Hunter Powers: For starters, there are definitely extremes where a great amount of thought about something is certainly not futile. Trying to truly understand something, that must not be futile. You're making a great decision, and you want to make sure you got it right. How can that be futile?
Hunter Powers: Now, if we look at the original text, we can find a little bit of additional context around this quote, where Bertrand talks about, "the ordinary troubles of ordinary days." He suggests that we first apply this idea of decisiveness to these ordinary troubles of ordinary days, that if you're constantly overthinking things, it's going to drain all of your energy. He says he doesn't mean to suggest that at a great crisis, for example, when ruin is imminent, or when a man has a reason to suspect that his wife is deceiving him, that then that would be appropriate to take some time, to perhaps be slightly indecisive.
Hunter Powers: But I think there's another way of looking at this. While you're digging deeper, while you're trying to fully understand the problem, that really isn't indecision, that isn't a wavering back and forth. When you're trying to understand what is the problem, what are the potential solutions, that's not indecision. The idea or one way to more fully justify this quote would be that once you fully understand a situation, make a decision, make a decision and move on, because the decision is also a trap. It is sucking all of your physical energy thinking about this thing, going back and forth, should I do this? Should I do that? I want to make sure I did the right thing, that there was no better solution. Oh, you thought about it, you made a decision, you move forward. If something new presents itself, then you can go back and think about it again. But decisiveness, decisiveness is terribly important, and it's often one of the characteristics that is identified in great leaders. The ability to decide, the ability to make a decision and stick with it until new information presents itself, to have confidence in what they're thinking.
Hunter Powers: And so returning back to that question of, do we agree with this, is nothing so exhausting as indecision and nothing so futile? Well, if you take the quote in pure isolation, I don't think it works, because of those crisis moments, and where it really violates itself is on the futile part. Nothing is so exhausting as indecision. That still works, and it's quite interesting. Now, if we take in the context of the original text, where Bertrand clearly pulls out the idea of crisis as not applying, or we are very careful in how we separate out the research and understanding of our problem versus the actual indecision, I do think that it can work, and work in a more complete agreement. But how do we use it? How do these 11 words become our secret weapon that, nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile?
Hunter Powers: The first big insight is the exhausting part. When you find yourself exhausted, physically exhausted, and you're trying to figure out why. I would guess that indecision is not something that you frequently look at as a potential cause, that the reason you are physically exhausted, the reason that everything feels so daunting to go and do, is that you can't make up your mind. And Bertrand was suggesting that this fatigue is a symptom of unhappiness, and that by taking a moment to figure out the decisions that you have to make, the decisions that you're putting off, and going ahead and making a decision on these things, that you will find more energy and that you will find more happiness or engagement in life. And so that's one angle on using it.
Hunter Powers: The second angle I would relate to leadership, where I see two kinds of indecision. There is legitimate indecision, where someone who needs to make a decision is not sure of what to do. They're trying to please everyone and there is no way to please everyone, and so they keep going back and forth and please no one. And then there is indecision as a political move where they express moving towards one decision for one group of people and express moving towards another decision for another group of people. Again, ultimately ending up in no-one being happy and everyone being exhausted.
Hunter Powers: Not just the leader, but the people themselves, they become so exhausted because they don't know what's going on. So much indecision. And so there's another insight in taking it one step further, that not only is indecision exhausting to one's self, it is exhausting to the people that you put it on, someone waiting for your indecision and the constant wavering back and forth, that you are freezing them up. And as a leader, you must be decisive. You must have confidence in your decisions, so that those who are following you can have confidence in you, and you must communicate these decisions with clear, concise communication.
Hunter Powers: But as a leader, you must have confidence in your decisions. You must be decisive. And the confidence comes when after looking at all the possibilities, the resources, the goals, you come to a decision for the best plan for your team, a decision that you can stand behind and remain confident in, and then you must communicate this decision to your team. And when you communicate with your team, your language should be profound. As clear as you can make it, in the simplest words. And this will give your team and you energy, and happiness, and engagement in the work that they're doing. And it doesn't mean that you can't change your mind.
Hunter Powers: It doesn't mean that some very important piece of information could come out, and you would need to make another decision and be decisive again. In short, there's an area of doing that too much, but make your decision, communicate your decision, and move on. And with that you will find energy. And with that you will find engagement. And for that you can think Bertrand Russell, who said, "Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile."
Hunter Powers: And that is your ONE idea for today. I am Hunter Powers broadcasting live from our nation's capital, as we say in the city, DC proper. And until next time...