Dr. Ellen Langer

Thank you.

It's interesting because people have trouble making decisions.

And they think they should do what decision theorists tell them to do.

And I think this is an instance where the experts are wrong and the people are right and should just know that what they're doing is fine.

Essentially, rather than waste your time, the big words, waste your time trying to make the right decision, what we need to do is almost randomly choose and make the decision right.

Don't worry about making the right decision.

Make the decision right.

What does that mean?

When you're making a decision, you make a decision to take action.

As soon as you take that action, there's no way to assess what the other alternative decisions would have been.

So you can never know.

Now, and we have lots of people who suffered decision regret, which is kind of funny, because the presumption is that, you know, so you do something, it doesn't work for you.

You say, oh, I should have done this other thing, as if the other thing would have been better.

The other thing could have been the same, worse, you know, or better.

But more important than that, the consequence of the decision is totally a function of the view you take of it.

So interestingly, all of my decisions are good.

You know, it's amazing.

I just don't make bad decisions.

Now, how could that be?

Because whatever happens is the right thing.