The Right Decision Doesn’t Come From Thinking

Every present moment holds a handful of choices, and each one leads to a completely different life. I know this literally.

In 2018 I was at a low point in Europe and did a 30-day meditation. A passing line in it pointed me to a company. I looked it up, applied, and ended up in Malaysia. That’s where I met my wife. That’s where my son came from. One small choice.

So how do you make the right one?

The obvious answer is to think it through. Weigh the options, project the outcomes, choose the best path. But that’s the trap.

The mind wants to see the future before it commits. It can’t. You only ever live one timeline. You never get to walk the road you didn’t take and compare. The mind’s good reasons are pretending to a knowledge no one can have.

So what’s left is the feeling. The choice with no tension in the body. The Taoists call it wu wei, effortless action. The other choices feel like swimming upstream. For me, those are the wrong ones.

But there’s a catch, and skipping it would be dishonest.

Sometimes what feels right gets you evicted. I left a good job in Malaysia because it felt right, with nothing lined up, and became a starving artist. It was brutal.

Bernardo Kastrup calls it the Daimon. Nature wants to express through you, and nature does not care whether you survive. That part is the ego’s job.

So here’s the whole picture. About 80% of the time, trust what feels right. The other 20%, negotiate, so the choice that feels alive doesn’t cost you something you can’t afford to lose.

Full video above.