Questioner (Q): Sir, I want to ask you about ‘decision making’. I want to ask more precisely about procrastination, about postponing things. What if you don’t have time to postpone something and if it has to be chosen immediately, is there a possibility of choosing the wrong way or is every way the right way, which leads to the same?
Acharya Prashant (AP): Then you have been brought to a point if it has to be chosen right now.
Q: If you have to make the decision?
AP: Then it has to be a random decision.
Q: It leads to the same?
AP: It is equally bad, this way or that way. So, toss a coin.
Q: Is it equally bad? That’s the thing.
AP: You know, if you take any side, then you are asserting that you know something, it is better to just acknowledge that 'I don’t know'. Or, if it is so very urgent, then if you want to back your knowledge, back it. But you should remain firm in the acknowledgment that it is just a blind throw or toss of the coin. If you know that it is a blind toss of the coin, then you will not face the consequence of the action. When the results will come, then you will know that these were inevitable, and you won’t face suffering.
Q2: If someone is not being able to respond without getting obsessed with the decision, destroying their energy, is it better to make a wrong decision than no decision? Then come what may, but at least you decide it and get into interaction, rather than just not moving.
AP: When we say, “Leave it to life”, that only means that now you are not applying your own discretion. So, which means, 'This or this?' When you do it so honestly, then at least, later on, you will not say that 'My decision went bad'. If your decision goes bad, then you will bear the suffering. Do you understand?
Q2: As they say, Ram’s decision.
AP: Just say, “Oh, Ram does not know anything, so Ram is now deciding blindly. Of course, it’s a contingency that Ram must decide, so Ram is now just randomly choosing something." Then the results come. First of all, you already know that it was a blind guess.
Q: How can it be random? Because if you decide without tossing a coin, I think it’s not possible to decide randomly because you have thoughts, pros, and cons about everything.
AP: The fact is that if all these pros and cons are so clear to you, then there is no need for a decision. The solution would have presented itself automatically.
Q: But there are pros and cons.
AP: I know what you are trying to say. Seventy-thirty, eighty-twenty, those kinds of things.
Q: Or fifty-fifty? I know there are pros and cons but don’t know which one is heavier or lighter.
AP: Then decide anything, but never tell yourself that you are deciding intelligently. The more you become the owner of the decision, the more you have to become the owner of the consequences.