The great picture of our lives

[Dave A]

The great picture of our lives is shaped less by the big decisions and more by the horde of little, seemingly insignificant decisions we make along the way.

Agree or disagree?

[Justloadit]

Every decision we make, alters the path we follow

[ians]

You only need to make one small mistake to impact the impression people have about you. I always try and tell youngsters to live by a set of moral standards, no matter what happens,even if you have a couple too many captains and coke, it is important not to loose focus, you do one small bad thing and people will always remember you for the one little bad thing you did rather than all the good you have done. So the answer to your question yes i agree, its the little decisions.

Some of the moral standards i live by:
Rule no. 1...Never sleep with your mates girlfriends or wives, even if they break up.
Always pay back debts, especially to friends even if it is only R10
very important...never lie, not even little insignificant ones they will always come back and bite you.
never hit a women, unless she hits you first.
There are many more, but i think these 4 are the most important.

This thread could get interesting

[Mike C]

I also agree - our lives today are a result of all the decisions made, both big and small ... and both concious and unconscious. The "unconscious" decisions are probably what we regard as the smaller decisions which emanate from our belief system (not religious belief) - what we believe about life, about money, about friendship, etc

[adrianh]

The problem is that we only know in hindsight which were the pivotal decisions.

[Citizen X]

The great picture of our lives is shaped less by the big decisions and more by the horde of little, seemingly insignificant decisions we make along the way.

Agree or disagree?

A very good morning to you Dave!

Whilst your question defies a short answer, I'll nonetheless try!The small decisions really do count! This is one for the philosophers though! If life is a chess problem, then philosophy does not provide a solution. If life is an art, philosophers are not the artists nor do they confer a technique for art. As to the claim that philosophy prepares one for this business of life, that claim remains largely unfounded!
My pal, Karl Marx, stated in 1845, ‘The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is however to change it” Making small decisions is actual change!
Small decisions do manifest in eventual change. I can’t help but agree with Adrian when he postulates that the benefit of retrospect gives invaluable insight into where we went astray, what we should have done as opposed to what we have done(For me this is a great many regrets, “too much wine, too much song, I wonder why I went wrong,’). Philosophy will remain a science that includes 3 branches: physics, ethics and logic.
The logical discourse that ‘The great picture of our lives is shaped less by the big decisions and more by the horde of little, seemingly insignificant decisions we make along the way,’ is actually sound

[Blurock]

I have to agree with Dave. Although I see it a little different. The choices we make in life determine who we are and whether we will be successful or not.

The big decisions are the ones that should set our goals. You have to decide whether you want to study and equip yourself for the job market, or just hope that something comes along. Do you work for yourself or for a boss? Which industry? Where do you want to stay? Do you want to marry and have children?

The small decisions are the ones that can sink your future and derail your lifetime goals and ambitions;
Do I go for a drink with my pals in stead of studying? Do I get drunk and wreck the place? Do I drink and drive and in the process cause an accident? Do I procrastinate on that big order and risk losing it? Do I give shoddy service because I am just too lazy for work today?

The small foxes are the ones that ruin the vineyard...

[Citizen X]

I have to agree with Dave. Although I see it a little different. The choices we make in life determine who we are and whether we will be successful or not.

The big decisions are the ones that should set our goals. You have to decide whether you want to study and equip yourself for the job market, or just hope that something comes along. Do you work for yourself or for a boss? Which industry? Where do you want to stay? Do you want to marry and have children?

The small decisions are the ones that can sink your future and derail your lifetime goals and ambitions;
Do I go for a drink with my pals in stead of studying? Do I get drunk and wreck the place? Do I drink and drive and in the process cause an accident? Do I procrastinate on that big order and risk losing it? Do I give shoddy service because I am just too lazy for work today?

The small foxes are the ones that ruin the vineyard...

"Just" much the same like the Jessica de Santos debacle, she made a seemingly small decision(in her mind) that had far reaching consequences!

[Blurock]

"Just" much the same like the Jessica de Santos debacle, she made a seemingly small decision(in her mind) that had far reaching consequences!

I do not think the mind was engaged when she made that statement, only the mouth.

[adrianh]

Define big vs small descision.

A person can decide to become a plumber or an electrician ? big descision
A person decides to have a cup of coffee at a coffee shop on the way home and becomes paralized in an accident ? small decision

You sit at the coffee shop and recognize somebody important and strike up a conversation - no outcome...small descision? ...you become world famous and makes lots of money...big descision?

The only really important criteria is whether the descision had a pivotal effect on your life.

You drink and drive --
no accident - not pivotal
huge accident and you kill 5 people - pivotal

...and as I said before, there is simply no way of knowing which descisions (big, small, on a whim) will have a pivotal effect on your life. aka Jessica de Santos - one childish remark made in the wrong ear and her career is is tatters.

[ians]

Seems twitter is also turning some people into twits, small tweet big oooops.

[Citizen X]

Define big vs small descision.

A person can decide to become a plumber or an electrician ? big descision
A person decides to have a cup of coffee at a coffee shop on the way home and becomes paralized in an accident ? small decision

You sit at the coffee shop and recognize somebody important and strike up a conversation - no outcome...small descision? ...you become world famous and makes lots of money...big descision?

The only really important criteria is whether the descision had a pivotal effect on your life.

You drink and drive --
no accident - not pivotal
huge accident and you kill 5 people - pivotal

...and as I said before, there is simply no way of knowing which descisions (big, small, on a whim) will have a pivotal effect on your life. aka Jessica de Santos - one childish remark made in the wrong ear and her career is is tatters.

Suppose it's relative then to who you are and what consequence the decision had on your life. Adrian, you've demonstrated right here the very promblem of logical discourse and philosophy in general. Incidentally, this very problem was apparent centuries ago.. What we actually engaging in here is pure philosophizing, a skill! A study of philosophy i.e. when Plaoto was born, which girlfirend he had, what he said etc will never give you this ability, that everyone who contributed to this thread have demonstrated ..an ability to philosophize.

[adrianh]

Interesting, but if that is the case then economists are no more than philosophers who explain the past....and have ZERO ability to predict the future.

If a woman marries 5 times and each ends in divorce does it mean that the 6th will too?
If a company fails to launch a product 5 times will it also fail the 6th time?

The economist would say "Well possibly" and if it is a success then the economist would say that he had correctly predicted the outcome.

So this then begs the question - are those who have successful lives simply lucky due to small desicions counting up to great furtune?
What about those who are absolutely brilliant but never got an oppertunity to utilize their skills - are they simply unlucky?
What about karma? Do you get out what you put in? if so then howcome some horrible people become rich and famous and some wonerful people die in obsure poverty?
What about religion? If you pray for a job and you get it - did your diety help you out? - if you don't get a job is it then your diety's plan for you to go through life poor?

My view is this: Your cards are dealt all the time, good, bad, indifferent. It is up to you to make the best possible decisions at each descision point given the information that you have at hand...better than that you cannot do! If it work out great, if it doesn't, no problem, a good card will come up again soonr or later.

[Citizen X]

Interesting, but if that is the case then economists are no more than philosophers who explain the past....and have ZERO ability to predict the future.

If a woman marries 5 times and each ends in divorce does it mean that the 6th will too?
If a company fails to launch a product 5 times will it also fail the 6th time?

The economist would say "Well possibly" and if it is a success then the economist would say that he had correctly predicted the outcome.

So this then begs the question - are those who have successful lives simply lucky due to small desicions counting up to great furtune?
What about those who are absolutely brilliant but never got an oppertunity to utilize their skills - are they simply unlucky?
What about karma? Do you get out what you put in? if so then howcome some horrible people become rich and famous and some wonerful people die in obsure poverty?
What about religion? If you pray for a job and you get it - did your diety help you out? - if you don't get a job is it then your diety's plan for you to go through life poor?

My view is this: Your cards are dealt all the time, good, bad, indifferent. It is up to you to make the best possible decisions at each descision point given the information that you have at hand...better than that you cannot do! If it work out great, if it doesn't, no problem, a good card will come up again soonr or later.

Adrian, based on what you say, one would not be wrong to classify you under one of the five categories of philosophical ethics names Rules Governed Ethics. Immanuel Kant is one of the most famous exponents of rule governed ethics Kant argues that philosophical ethics is the system of the ends of pure practical reason.All rational knowledge is either material and concerned with the form of understanding and of reason themselves and with the universal rules of thought in general without regard to differences of its objects. Formal philosophy is called logic.[1]
So it’s logical discourse you engaged in! Let me show you, Adrian, how exactly right you actually are in whatever you have just said!
The metaphysician cannot provide an agreed and demonstrably correct answer to questions as to how the universe started. The morals of the ethical philosopher are not of necessity superior of that of the grass roots man. Dr Josef Megele had both a medical degree and a doctorate in philosophy, yet history tells us that when they ran out of gas to kill the Jewish kids on one bitter cold day, he ordered that these kids be thrown live into the open flames of those ovens! He studied philosophy and in particular both ethics and morality extensively at one of the best known universities of its day, yet he was a monster of a man.
All reasoning is not logic and all logical is not reasoning. A professor of anatomy understands all aspects of the limbs, he can break it down for you molecule by molecule, he understands how the limbs function and perhaps more importantly what, both natural and unnatural can be used to increase their performance But this does not mean that he will be able to become the next 100m Olympics athlete YET you may get a man from the informal settlement, he may genuinely believe that his legs only consist of blood and of nothing further, he may have never even entered a school let alone sat in a grade 1 class BUT he runs like lighting and wins the 100m Olympics race. So it was not his understanding of the limbs or what they comprise that made him excel. Go figure..

So here we are back to our quandary, right back to where we started but still we exceed brilliantly as far as philosophizing is concerned, now even a university student with a degree in philosophy may be able to rattle like a parrot as to when Plato was born, what he ate, who his girlfriend was and what he said, but to do just what we have so easily done in this thread, I won’t place any bets on that college kid!

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[1] James. W Ellington. Immanuel Kant. Ethical Philosophy.Hacket Publishing Company Inc. 1994. Page 1 para 387

[tec0]

Choice... No matter it size and or impact, regardless of the alternative there is no such thing as choice. The illusion is real enough but the outcome will always be the same. Take a roulette wheel for example.

If you take a number and move your eye across to the other number on the opposite side you will find that it doesn’t line up. For example the zero will line up to the five and the ten. So basically to cover both the five and the ten you need to place two bets insuring that you will lose one bet if not both.

Then you need to look at the spinning of the ball its momentum is it clockwise or anticlockwise and is there any consistency “numbers that repeat” Now in most cases seven have a tendency to repeat alongside thirty-six (depending on the dealer) with a twenty-seven percent interval within thirty minutes. That means you have possibility to see a seven within eight point one minutes of play alongside thirty-six.

But then something happens an inconsistency in the wrist and or finger pressure will give a random red black or green this messes with the math and is the only reason why this part of the game is still human. This brings your chances down to an average of one point one, one percent (despite the official documentation) towards each spin and you will lose and or win simply by accident. But it is not an accident now is it...

No... Mechanical theory doesn’t allow for accidents only poor observations and you need to be fast because you will find that they change the dealers systematically along with the mass of the ball and so on... This introduces a constant variable.

Now to point of all of this is the outcome.... “Despite documentation” stays the same. The house always wins. Therein my case and point, it doesn’t matter what you do in life you will lose when you lose and win when you win. Everything else is just a variable of “if and when” you win and or lose but the result will remain the same.

Let’s pretend that a member goes “ok I will disproof your theory and give me R50k large right then and there. This will go towards my winning probability. Second action is no action and the situation remains unchanged and or someone bad mouths me and I lose a customer and that goes towards my losing probability... My outcome be it ill health a accident or violent departure will remain unchanged it is written in stone because the rule of mechanical theory remains regardless.

We are just gears running in a machine called life.