A ‘win-win’ Life

THE WIN-WIN LIFE

Everyday people are faced with the same choices.  From the moment you awake to the time you return to slumber you are in win-win life.  What is this win-win life I am talking about?

Life was created specifically for people to have the ability to make choices.  These choices can be better understood as decisions.  We make decisions our entire life.   What do I wear, what do I eat, where should I go, and is this the job I want? are but a few of the many decisions we make.  Decision making becomes a part of our character so much so it forms whom we are.  We are the product of our decisions.  Our life is a step by step continual change of process directed by our decision making.  You may have heard that the older you get the more you become set in your ways.  This means that you choose to make the same decisions every day.  History shows the longer you continue to make the same decisions the less likely you will change.

A ‘win-win’ life is there for everyone who will make the decision to recognize it.  Yes, it is as simple as that.  Let me explain.  How could the decisions you make every day be a ‘win-win’ decision?  I like to think of my art classes I have had in high school and college.  One of the first things the professors reviewed was the concept of perspective. Typically there are three types of perspective: visual, cognitive and mathematical.  Art is the visual or graphical perspective.  What I want to focus on is cognitive perspective.  Cognitive perspective is one’s point of view.  This is developed into what you may know as opinions, beliefs and experiences.  Cognitive perspective is developed when we are first introduced into this world as children.  It is as children, where we are taught an incorrect perspective concerning our decision making process.  While as children, we primarily are dependent upon our parents or caregivers, to guide us in our decision process.  Inevitably, we are taught that these decisions we make are categorized as bad, good or for some ok but could be better.  As we progress through life we now have a tool that forms whom we are by our experiences that decide what we believe, and what our opinions are.  This decision making tool is what how our future will unfold.

We can see that we are made up of the decisions we make in life.  The key here is to recognize that decisions in themselves are neither good nor bad.  The perspective on good and bad is based off of what society holds in the time you are living.  Still others rely on direction from books or tradition to decide for them.  These perspectives once again are based off of what someone put together at one time or another as a guide on life.  I’m not going to discuss in this article the history or morals, but instead to focus on how you can have a ‘win-win’ decision making process.  So let’s begin.

Let’s begin with an example.  You have before you the decision to leave your well paying job and benefits, and move to a new location with no job or place to live, limited savings and a failing economy.  What do you do?  Your first thought may be “no, that’s a bad idea because….”  Instead of looking at this as a decision, think of it as an opportunity.  This word carries a positive meaning, and will help guide you in the decision process to have a ‘win-win’ life.  In every decision making process, remember cognitive perspective is not based off of good or bad rather is an opportunity.  You will find with practice, that every opportunity you are faced with, your decision process will allow you to always have the ability to have a ‘win-win’ life.  So in the above example, whether you choose to stay where you are or to move, rest assured your opportunity in life will be no longer be looked at as good or bad, but as a ‘win-win’ decision.