Episode 16: Choices

Good morning and welcome to a podcast called Wisdom from the Aerial View. My name is Enid Borden. And just a little bit of background, I'm the CEO of the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger. With me is Dr. Mark Klein, who's a retired physician. I don't know that physicians ever retire, do they doctor? Probably not. But today we're gonna talk about something called choices. And let me begin by talking to you a little bit about a book.

Not me.

that you and I, Mark, both read. In fact, you introduced me to a podcast that she did. Her name is Dr. Ellen Langer. And she's an amazing woman. And in her book that's called The Mindful Body, she says this. Let me start by reading something that she said. She said, if decisions don't require elaborate reasoning or even information gathering, what is the difference between a guess a prediction, a choice, and a decision. We all know that when we are guessing, it's because we don't know what the outcome will be. Similarly, when we make predictions, it's because when we make predictions, we're unaware of what might be. Making a choice is no different. If there was no doubt, there would be no choice. Okay, so let me ask you this question. Is there even a best choice? Is there even a right choice?

Good morning, idiot.

I know this is heavy stuff, but it makes you think.

No, this is great. think that is a fan. Besides the fact that we're great friends and we enjoy talking to each other, you never disappoint me. I mean, you always come up with something really cool. That is a perfect beginning to this discussion because you and I have talked offline about Dr. Ellen Langer. We watched one of her podcasts. For those who don't know, she's a psychologist, a psychology professor. at Harvard University, has been for a long time, was one of the earliest people to talk about mindfulness. But talking about when you describe her in mindfulness, doesn't project the correct image of what she does, in my opinion. And her views are very attractive to me because we, I think, are very... We see things from the same point of view on many of these topics and choices is one of them. So I think reading that was a perfect introduction. Thank you so much. So you asked me a question. Is there such a thing as a best choice? I love that question because most people would say, well, sure, maybe not best, but certainly at least better. You can choose A or B, which is the better choice. So one of them has to be by definition, right? That's the conventional wisdom. And what Dr. Langer with saying, and what I'm going to reiterate is that that is completely untrue. There is no such thing as a best choice. It's crazy, right? So how do you get to that? So we have to go back and talk about the art. What is a choice? So a choice is you're confronted with A, B or A, B, C, however many options you have. You go into a restaurant and you say, you look at the menu and go, gee, you know.

I know, that was so fascinating to me. So let's talk about that.

I'm thinking of having a hamburger, but probably I shouldn't eat a hamburger. And the salad sounds good, know, salad probably won't do it for me. Should I put, what's the right choice? So you look at the waitress and you say, what do you recommend, the hamburger or the salad? I love, you know, I love when people do that because the poor waitress is thinking, how the heck do I know what you want to eat, right? But most of them are very kind waiters or waitresses, whatever. They're very kind. go, well.

We recommend the hamburger or the salad. Right. Ha ha ha ha!

They often say things like, well, the hamburger is very popular, right? Something like that. Okay. But you think there is a right choice. And of course there is no right choice. How do I say that? Well, let's say you order the hamburger, right? And then an hour later you feel awful and you feel bloated and you just don't like the way you feel. And you go, should have gotten the salad. But let's say you got the salad and the dressing had something in it that was processed. And an hour later,

you got the salad and the dressing had something in it that was processed and an hour later you were feeling like you had to find the closest bathroom.

you were feeling like you had to find the closest bathroom because you were going to be sick, right? So you don't know what the next hour is going to bring. Nobody does. So a choice is not the final answer. The choice is the initiation of a process. So the analogy I like to use, and you're familiar with this, is when you release a choice, when you make a choice or a decision, imagine a bubble being released from you. like a soap bubble, right? So it just floats out there. And for the first inch or so, it's just fine, it's pristine. And as soon as it goes a couple inches further, all of a sudden, that bubble is being confronted by the choices that everybody else around you and even those far away are making. So now your bubble is getting whacked by an infinite number, not an infinite, but a very large number of bubbles. So that bubble is getting pushed to the left, getting pushed to the right, it's getting pushed up, it's getting pushed down. You don't know where that bubble is gonna end up because it's being It's being, because it's interacting with all those other bubbles, all those other choices coming from everybody else. So the point is you cannot predict where that choice is going to land. So I have another analogy from one of my previous books. And the analogy is that imagine you and go down into the tube in London or the subway in New York, it doesn't matter. Let's stick with the tube in London, it's a little more.

Let's stick with the tube in London. Yeah, it sounds better. Yeah, the tube. And it's dirty and it smells.

Sophisticated. I like that better. Yeah, because we grew up in New York and we think a subway is a mess. So we're going to stick with the London too. So somebody, you go downstairs and the person who you go with said, okay, now here's what's going to happen. You're going to get on this train and I'm going to tell you randomly when to get off, which train to transfer to, which stop to get off again. which stop to transfer to, and you're going to have no idea what I'm going to tell you at any time. It's going to be purely random. Now, at the beginning of that journey, have, it is impossible for you to know where you're going to end up at the end of all this because you're making all these random stops, changing trains and so on. So at the beginning of the trip, if somebody said, where are going? You'd have no possible idea because somebody's randomly changing your trains on you. Well, that's how a choice is, right? It's the same idea. As soon as you release that choice, as soon as you release that bubble, it's getting whacked by all the other choices and decisions made by all the other people in the world, literally. And so you have no idea what the end result of that choice is. It's impossible to know. So think how liberating that is in a way. Like you make a choice and this not just thing as a best or right choice, because you cannot predict the outcome. That's very liberating, I think.

It is unless the choice or the prediction or the decision turns out to be not such a good idea. In other words, if you made, so you're saying, and I guess my quandary about this is if there's no right or wrong decision or choice or whatever, then you'll continue to do the same thing over and over and over again, no?

No. So most of us make a lot of choices every day. Right. So I have a couple of stories since we have time. I'll tell you one of the stories. Right. So a woman is looking for a job and she gets two job offers. And one is a company that is we'll call a company A to make it simple. And company A is an established company. It's been around for 50 years. They have recurring revenues. They are solid as a rock. Right.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We'll have to hear it.

And the job is a good job, but it's not particularly exciting and not necessarily the perfect job for her in the terms of work she's looking for, but it's a really good job. And then company B comes along and offers her a job. And this is a startup. And in this startup, they have some funding enough for six months or so, but they're only a small group of people, really smart group of people, whatever. And this sounds like a lot of fun. This is really exciting. So she thinks, okay. If I take job company A, I'm going to be fine. know I'm going to have an income. company B is little more, is more risky, certainly more risky, but it could be a lot more fun. So what's the right choice? Okay. So there is, so she has to pick, right? She has to pick the hamburger or the salad, right? Job A or job B. She says, you know what? I'm going to go with job B. I'm going to go with the riskier job because it's so much more exciting to me. So she says company A, thank you so much.

Right

I'm not going to take that your job, but I really appreciate the offer. I'm going to go with company B. She goes to this company B and in the beginning it goes great. Before you know it, the company heads south and six months later the company folds because they run out of money and now she's out of a job. So let's stop right here. Did she make the right choice?

well

It looks like she didn't, right? looks like, now she's unemployed. Oops, I guess I made the wrong choice. Okay, now let's move the movie forward a little bit, right? So what does she do? She goes, okay, well, all right, I got to find a job. So you know what? Every morning she goes, she says, okay, I'm going to start sending out resumes online and she goes down to the Starbucks on the corner and sits there, orders her a nice big giant mochaccino, like you like to say, and sits there with her mochaccino and...

By the way, I've developed a mochachino. I'm selling it. Yeah. It's a killer. It might kill you, but it'll be out there.

and starts, excellent. It's gonna be a killer product, I know. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, she's with her mochaccino and she's, for those of you who don't know, a few episodes ago we were talking about coffee and Ina doesn't drink coffee, so she was guessing what a drink at Starbucks was and she called it a mochaccino, which I love, it's the best name of any drink. on the plan. love the idea. So that's why we're using Mochaccino. Anyway, she's sitting with her Mochaccinos, women's now at Starbucks filling out online applications with her Mochaccino. And, you know, she does this every day for a week or two. And towards the end of the second week, she sits next to this group of people, three people sitting at a table. And she's like right next them at Starbucks. Everybody can hear everything everybody's saying. And she hears them talking about their company. And they're talking about, got to find somebody who can do these, who can meet these skills we need. How are we going to recruit somebody? Let's find the right person. And she gets up and she goes, you know, I'm sorry, couldn't, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn't help it over here that you're looking for somebody who has exactly my skills. And she explains to them who she is and what she's done. And they say, okay, let's talk. So they talk and sure enough, they offer her the job. So now she's working for this new startup. And let's fast forward five years and the company is sold for a kajillion dollars and she makes several million dollars from her initial stock. So now her decision to go to company B instead of company A originally, was it looked like it was a bad decision when she lost her job at company B. Now all of sudden, she's a company C for five years and made millions of dollars. So is that original choice a good choice or a bad choice? Well, now it looks like. It might've been a good choice. So if we stopped the movie there, we go, okay, turns out that original choice was not a bad choice because she lost her job and she got a better job and she made millions of dollars. Now let's stop the movie there. Okay, so far we go, okay, well, it was a first a bad choice. Now it's a good choice. What happens down the road? Right? We don't know what happens down the road. It could be because she, now she sells, she's got all this money and she decides to do something else and something sad happens to her as a result of the next, right?

Yeah.

There's no way to predict. There's no such thing as a best choice because each choice initiates a cascade of events. Just like she chose company A, B instead of company A, that initiated a cascade of events, which are completely unpredictable. Why? Because that choice is interacting with all the other choices being made by the billions of people on this planet. It is impossible to know the outcome of any decision.

Just like she chose company A, B instead of company A, that initiated the past state of the game, which are completely unpredictable. Why? Because that choice is interacting with all the other choices we made on the billionth people on the planet. It is impossible to know the outcome of any decision. Well, again, listening to Dr. Langer and that podcast, one of the things she said that sort of made me scratch my head was she doesn't believe in luck. Do you?

No, well, no. know, it's like, you know, luck is like, no, I don't believe in luck. it's not okay. It's because I would call it something else, right? It's I would, first of all, when you're in this is where the aerial view is so helpful, right? So we're as we're discussing company A and company B and company C in the swimming, right? And you're talking about luck. All these things happen where? In the street view.

See, I got you there. Of you said yes. No, you have to believe in the Lord. Let's talk about that. Okay, what would you call it?

But if you're in the aerial view and you get this panoramic picture of all time, you realize that, and remember, all time exists contemporaneously. So by definition, there cannot be any such thing as luck, because all things exist simultaneously in the jukebox of time. All moments, past, present, and future, as Einstein famously said, for we believing physicists, past, present, and future is just a stubborn illusion. All of time is out there. Time is a thing. It's the jukebox of time that we've discussed many times. So since everything's already happened and all these choices are being made, luck, it seems like luck, but it has nothing to do with luck. It was the intersection of all these choices ending up in a certain way. So sometimes the intersection of choices are going to end up being positive and to you on your pros and on your

everything's already happened and all these choices are being made. Luck. It seems like luck, but it has nothing to do with luck. was the intersection of all these choices ending up in a certain way. So sometimes the intersection of choices are going to end up being positive and to you on your project on your positive and negative list and sometimes it's going to be negative just like this lady who chose company B over company A got fired and ended up with company C. Was that luck?

positive and negative list. And sometimes it's going to be negative, just like this lady who chose company B over company A, got fired and ended up with company C. Was that luck? No, it had nothing to do with luck. was just the way the world works. was the intersection of all these choices creating reality. So we've talked about this before. Reality is one in the eyes of the beholder, because each of us has our own clock and what's happening at any one moment is different for us than anybody else. We each participate in the creation of reality because we are making these decisions and choices and initiating these cascades of events. every time you make a choice or decision, boom, new cascade of events occurs. What happens? It gets out there and gets whacked by all the other cascades of choices being made by all these other people. So it's just the serendipitous, you might say, intersection of things, but it's not so much luck. It's just That's the way the world unfolds. Sometimes it will unfold in your favor and sometimes it won't. But it's only if you stop the movie at a particular place. Whenever you keep the movie going, it changes. It's always changing. What looked like a bad decision becomes a good decision, becomes a bad decision, becomes a good decision. So lady chose company B, woman chose company B over company A, loses her job, looks like a bad decision. hooks up with company C at the Starbucks, makes millions of dollars, good decision. Let's say on the basis of that, has this money and decides to buy a house in Los Angeles and it burns down, right? So see what I'm saying? They don't exist. This is the way the world works.

has this money and decides to buy a house in Los Angeles. And then it burns down. Uh-huh, uh-huh. So, you know what saying? They don't exist. I do. I do, but then in your book, I quote you, you say, of our choices is merely a best guess. Are we not playing semantics here? Best guess, best choice? Tell me, this is where I'm having what I don't understand. You're saying a best

Correct.

guess and yet you say there's no such thing as a best choice. Is that a matter of semantics? All right, explain.

No, ma'am. So, let's go back. We can stick with the same analogy soon enough to expand this. So, woman choosing her company, right? So, she said, I'm going to make my best guess. The best guess is I'll have more fun at company B. You know, that just sounds like a better thing, right? But it didn't work out in the beginning, then it did work out, then who knows what happens in the future, right? So, my point is, make whatever decision you think is the best for you at the time.

So my point is make whatever decision you think

That's a prudent thing to do. But understand that there's no guarantee of how it's going to work out. So yes, we do have to make choices. We have to pick the hamburger or the salad. We just don't know how it's going to work out. So yes, always make what you think is the best choice because there are probabilities. So in other words, the probability of going to company B over company A, maybe in her mind was 70-30. 70 % chance it'll work out better, 30 % chance it won't. Okay, the 30 % won out originally, right? But then she got another job, it was better. you make your, you look at the probabilities and you make your best choice, but you then sit back and let it go. That's the point. There should be no angst. There should be no fretting over, I make the right decision? Now you and I know people who fret over every single decision they make, drive themselves insane. But the point is, go ahead, you go.

should be no angst. There should be no fretting over what I make like. You and I know people who fret over every single decision they make. Yeah, you look at it, right. Good, so let's, and that's what I want to talk about. So those, because those who are eager or anxious actually, not eager, but anxious about those choices. Talk to me about that. Talk to me about how does one get from the street view to the aerial view to be. I think, my God, I made the wrong decision. I made the wrong choice. I made the wrong guess. And I now I'm filled with great anxiety. Tell me how I escape from that. What do I do? Ease my mind that, my goodness, I made the wrong decision. I should have chosen company A because why? When I took the job at company B, it didn't work. I got laid off because they went under. Okay. I went to the cafe. I have a malcocino. Great, I got a new job. But company A, by the way, that I didn't take the job with was Google. And look what, how well they did. So did I make the right choice, did I make the wrong? And now I'm filled with all this angst. What do I, get me from the street view to the area view.

Okay. Okay, so it's very easy. when you make a choice, you have to understand that you weigh the probabilities in your head. We all do that. We don't think about probabilities. We go, okay, I'm going choose this. I'm going to go to the left instead of going to the right because that seems to be probably, that's probabilistic, probably the best decision. But you have no way of knowing. So you use your probabilities and you say, this looks like the better choice. And you take that fork in the road. Right? But you have no idea what's going to happen after that. Zero chance of knowing. It is impossible. Nobody can know it. That's the way the world works. We live in a quantum world, a probabilistic world, and it is impossible to know it's certainty. And the reason it's impossible to know it's certainty in this situation is because all those other choices, all those bubbles that are coming out of people are interacting with yours. So once you make your choice, you let it go because it is out of your control what happens. You can't control which company goes under, which company soars. You can't control any of these things. They are not something under your command. So you make your best decision based on probabilities and then you let it go. And the aerial view, you can see that. You can see how all these decisions create these cascade of events. So these, even your own decision.

can't control which company goes under which company soars. You can't control any of these things. They are not something under your command. So you make your best decision based on probabilities and then you let it go. In the aerial view you can see that. You can see how all these decisions create these cascading events. So these, even your own decision, even your own cascade of events is going to be influenced almost immediately by

Even your own cascade of events is going to be influenced almost immediately by other events in the world, other people's decisions, the weather. You have no idea. Right. So the point is, since there is no such thing as the best choice because you cannot predict the ultimate outcome, right, then you make your choice and you let it go. That's the liberating part of this. You should not feel angst. You cannot say I made the wrong choice because it depends where in the movie you stop it. Right.

But what happens if the decision that I made or the choice that I made or whatever I want to call it? hurt somebody else, then what? No, not intentionally.

Well, if it hurts somebody else intentionally, then there's nothing you can do about it. I'll give you the flip side. Here's the optimistic side. Let's go back to the lady who chose, woman who chose company B over company A. Now company A has an opening, right? Because the woman didn't take the job. that a woman, another woman gets the job. It just so happened that she had a child who was very ill. She had been laid off from her other job. So now she's unemployed and her child needs medical care. And all of sudden she has no health insurance.

Yeah. Yeah.

So she interviews for the job at company A. Now this job is open because the other woman didn't take it. She went to company B. This woman gets hired at company A. Now all of sudden she has health insurance. She can take care of her child. She doesn't have to worry about the child's medical bills. that was a good, the fact that the initial woman chose company B was a godsend for the woman who just got this job whose child needs medical care and she was unemployed and uninsured. So that's. So cool, right? So one person's decision to go to another company opened up the opportunity for somebody else. And that's how it works. was the decision. So let's go to the very initial part of the decision where the initial woman chose company B over company A. And six months later, she loses her job and we stop the movie there, right? We're to stop the movie there. So for her, it looks like she made the wrong choice. She chose company B instead of A. But for the woman who just got her that job that was open, whose child was ill and needed health care coverage.

Okay.

That woman now gets this job and for her, the woman's choice of company B over company A was a godsend to her from her point of view, from her perspective, that woman made a fantastic choice because now she's got the job. Okay, now we fast forward. We know what happened to the woman. She gets a job with company C and makes millions of dollars, right? So what happened to the woman now? Let's fast forward again for the woman who now had the sick child and went to company A because that job opened. What happens down the road? Who knows? Who knows what happens? Could be good, could be bad. Impossible to know. No way to know. So that's the point. There is no way to predict the ultimate outcome of any choice. It is impossible. So once you accept that and understand that, and it's absolutely factual, which is what Dr. Ellen Langer was referring to, right? Right. That's the point. You cannot know. That is the way the world works. So you make, to weigh the probabilities, make your choice and let it go.

Yes, she was,

You know, have to say, listening to her and listening to you and reading the book, the one thing that I've learned from all of this, and it's something that I want to think about and I like to emulate, both of you are very optimistic. Your lives seem to be very fulfilled and you seem, and this is going to sound trite, but you seem happy. You seem as though, look, whatever happens happens and there's nothing I can do. It's a wonderful way of living your life. And I really do envy it. The podcast with Dr. Langer was three hours. It was very lengthy, but it seemed like it was over in a flash. And my conversations with you both online and offline, when I'm done with these conversations, I always think, you know, life's not so hard. Life's not so bad because I can look at it in a different way. I want to thank you for that. I know that seems somewhat. crazy to do, but true, there seems to be an optimism in your belief system that we can all learn from. And I guess it's because you call it the aerial view, I call it the optimistic view, and I like that. Tell me about, are you ever pessimistic about anything? And I'm being really serious, I know your wife's never pessimistic, are you?

Not for long, because as soon as I get that way, go, wait a minute, I'm missing the point. So let me give you the reason for optimism. This is going to sound completely crazy in back, because we've talked about a lot. We talked about death, right? We spent a half hour talking about that. And I'm sure we'll revisit this periodically in our podcast. But death is the greatest single clue to why we're here.

Yeah. Yeah. Enid (24:16.4) Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

And the point is that from the aerial view, you can see the jukebox of time and you can see the narrow slice of time that we're here, that our lifespans are, they're negligible in the overall jukebox of time. We already know the ending, right? You already know what's going to happen. We live our lives as if we make every right choice, as if we're in a maze. And we go, okay, if we make the left here, we're not gonna run into the wall, we'll get around, we gotta make every right choice. And if we do that, we're gonna get through the maze and win. But there's no win, right? Everybody's last page of everybody's story, the last record of everybody's lifespan is death, 100%. That can't be the point. Can't have anything to do with longevity. So now you realize, okay, no matter what, I'm going to die. I have a limited time. I don't know how long it is, whatever it is, is. So, holy crap.

Yeah.

So I must be here for a different reason. If it's not winning the game, if there's no such thing as winning, meaning living forever, there must be another reason. okay. And we've gotten to that. We've talked about the evolution from selfish to selfless, from inward to outward focus in preparation for what comes next. Okay, all I got to do is focus on doing the best job I can. So imagine yourself at the starting line of a race, right? And they shoot off the gun and you start running as fast as you can. It's a sprint. Okay, sprint the whole way. because it's a limited time engagement. Just keep run right through the tape. People say to me, how do you expect, what do you think is going to happen towards the end of your life? I hope to run through the tape, right? Do everything I can, hopefully the majority of it in a manner to help as many people as I can to make the world better, to improve myself, to prepare myself. But that's it. So that's the whole thing. That's the whole story. That's what you see from the aerial view. There is no other story, right?

myself, prepare myself. But that's it. So that's the whole thing. That's the whole story. That's what you see from the aerial view. There is no other story. And that's your choice, isn't it? That's the choice.

Societies are going to come and go, wars are going to happen, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that has nothing to do with you. You have a limited time here. When that gun goes off, start running as fast as you can and run through the tape, meaning do as much as you can to improve yourself, to prepare yourself, to help as many people as you can. And that's it because we already know the ending. It's not a surprise. Like, if I make the wrong choice, I'm going to die. No. If you make any choice, you're going to die. You're going to die. It's a limited time engagement. focus on the time you hear, make the most you can out of it. That's the reason to be optimistic. That, it's so simple. People go, you make life seem so simple. You're so, you know, it's so naive. I go, nah, not from the aerial view. It's not naive. This is the way it is. This is the way it is. You may think, you may think it's more. It's not more, right? It's not more. So. You know, everything has happened will happen again. Every story will be repeated. Societies will come and go. Individuals will repeat the same thing their parents, grandparents and great-grands did in terms of how they live their lives, their interactions, their relationships. The set will change. The environment in which it happens will change. The story will never change. Right? So that's why I'm optimistic, because I get it, right? And I don't want to sound, that sounds a little bit... hearty or a little bit, I don't like the way that sounded. don't want to, because I try to be humble. I'm just saying that it's not that I've discovered something that nobody else has discovered, right? Nothing I have said or will say has not been said by others before me. There's not a new idea under the sun. But once you recognize, once you spend time in the area of you and you recognize what life really is, it is very optimistic. There's every reason to be optimistic.

It is very optimistic. There's every reason it's optimistic. Because we already know the ending. can't fear the end. Don't fear the end. We already know the end. That cannot be the spirit. You can't win the game. There's no winning. So just do what you can while you're here to improve the lives of as many people as you can and prepare yourself for what comes next. I like that. I like it a lot. I like the notion of

Right? Because we already know the ending. You can't fear the end. Don't fear the end. We already know the end. That cannot be the story. Right? Right? You can't win the game. There's no winning. So just do what you can while you're here to improve the lives of as many people as you can and prepare yourself for what comes next.

of optimism actually. Maybe that's something we talk about at greater length at another time, or time is just about up. And it goes fast, doesn't it? I mean, it's amazing how we get on this. I'm just sitting here thinking, I gotta stop being so pessimistic. We had a little conversation, you and I, before we started the podcast. And again, it was about politics and we shouldn't, and I'm too involved in it I shouldn't be, but it's part of...

For me it does.

everyday life and maybe it shouldn't be and maybe I need to look at things more optimistically and I will from now on I promise you I'm gonna end this wonderful conversation today and look forward to our next conversation but I want to go to your book and in the book I'm gonna quote you quoting somebody else because I think it's important you said In his classic poem the road not taken the great American poet Robert Frost penned these lines two roads diverged in a wood. And I, I took the one less traveled by. And what and that has made all the difference. And then you say, with great respect to Mr. Frost, although choosing the road less traveled seemed to have worked out just fine for him, the more traveled road might've turned out even better. Great line. Thank you, doctor. Appreciate it today. I appreciate you all the time, but particularly today because you leave me on an optimistic note and we need to be more optimistic. Final word, Final word, sir?

Well, that makes me very happy to make you happy. And it's always a pleasure in it. Love these conversations. Love you. And thank you, everybody, for listening.

Me too. Peace.