Decision Fatigue Quotes

The cognitive scientists have now proven the reality of “decision fatigue”—that every decision you make, little or big, diminishes a limited amount of your brain power.

Natalie was going to stay at home, cooking meals, baking pies, and making sure their life together was comfortable. When Zach came home from a hard day's work, she wanted to be there for him, not coping with her own stress and fatigue. She knew some women would object to her decision, but this was her life, and she was going to live it as she chose.

Psychologists call this “decision fatigue”: the more choices we are forced to make, the more the quality of our decisions deteriorates.

you can use positive constraints to increase perceived free will and results. Freeform days might seem idyllic, but they are paralyzing due to continual paradox of choice (e.g., “What should I do now?”) and decision fatigue (e.g., “What should I have for breakfast?”). In

The soul was not made to run on empty. But the soul doesn’t come with a gauge. The indicators of soul-fatigue are more subtle: • Things seem to bother you more than they should. Your spouse’s gum-chewing suddenly reveals to you a massive character flaw. • It’s hard to make up your mind about even a simple decision. • Impulses to eat or drink or spend or crave are harder to resist than they otherwise would be. • You are more likely to favor short-term gains in ways that leave you with high long-term costs. Israel ended up worshiping a golden calf simply because they grew tired of having to wait on Moses and God. • Your judgment is suffering. • You have less courage. “Fatigue makes cowards of us all” is a quote so ubiquitious that it has been attributed to General Patton and Vince Lombardi and Shakespeare. The same disciples who fled in fear when Jesus was crucified eventually sacrificed their lives for him. What changed was not their bodies, but their souls.

Scientists have proven that there are a limited number of decisions you can make each day before you reach “decision fatigue.”2 Each decision requires energy, and when you’re tired, hungry, or have already made a lot of decisions, you run out of energy and start making bad choices.

Ease my fatigue with your presence and my hesitation with your peace.

unchecked, decision fatigue can lead to decision avoidance.

One third of managers are victims of "Information Fatigue Syndrome." 49 percent said they are unable to handle the vast amounts of information received. 33 percent of managers were suffering ill health as a direct result of information overload. 62 percent admitted their business and social relationships suffer. 66 percent reported tension with colleagues and diminished job satisfaction. 43 percent think that important decisions are delayed and their abilities to make decisions are affected as a result of having too much information. (Reuters's "Dying for Business" report)

It is [Simon] Wessely’s often-unconcealed “derision” directed towards people with ME -- a disease from which people die and which appears on Coroners’ death certificates as the cause of death -- which arouses such anger, an anger that is not confined to patients in the UK but encompasses medical scientists in other countries whose decision-makers have come under Wessely’s thrall.

Doctors, soldiers, and mothers encounter it routinely; I had, any number of times. Unable to respond to an immediate emergency while clouded by fatigue, the mind simply withdraws a little, separating itself fastidiously from the body’s overwhelming self-centered needs. From this clinical distance, it can direct things, bypassing emotions, pain, and tiredness, making necessary decisions, cold-bloodedly overruling the mindless body’s needs for food, water, sleep, love, grief, pushing it past its fail-safe points.

Without a clear purpose you have no foundation on which you base decisions, allocate your time, and use your resources. You will tend to make choices based on circumstances, pressures, and your mood at that moment. People who don’t know their purpose try to do too much — and that causes stress, fatigue, and conflict.

How to be there for someone with depression or anxiety 1. Know that you are needed, and appreciated, even if it seems you are not. 2. Listen. 3. Never say ‘pull yourself together’ or ‘cheer up’ unless you’re also going to provide detailed, foolproof instructions. (Tough love doesn’t work. Turns out that just good old ‘love’ is enough.) 4. Appreciate that it is an illness. Things will be said that aren’t meant. 5. Educate yourself. Understand, above all, that what might seem easy to you –going to a shop, for instance –might be an impossible challenge for a depressive. 6. Don’t take anything personally, any more than you would take someone suffering with the flu or chronic fatigue syndrome or arthritis personally. None of this is your fault. 7. Be patient. Understand it isn’t going to be easy. Depression ebbs and flows and moves up and down. It doesn’t stay still. Do not take one happy/ bad moment as proof of recovery/ relapse. Play the long game. 8. Meet them where they are. Ask what you can do. The main thing you can do is just be there. 9. Relieve any work/ life pressure if that is doable. 10. Where possible, don’t make the depressive feel weirder than they already feel. Three days on the sofa? Haven’t opened the curtains? Crying over difficult decisions like which pair of socks to wear? So what. No biggie. There is no standard normal. Normal is subjective. There are seven billion versions of normal on this planet.

you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It’s different from ordinary physical fatigue

executive and nonexecutive, every day. Yet few people are even aware of it. When asked whether making decisions would deplete their willpower and make them vulnerable to temptation, most people say no. They don’t realize that decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people get angry at their colleagues and families, splurge on clothes, buy junk food at the supermarket, and can’t resist the car dealer’s offer to rustproof their new sedan.

So I say to you, seek God and discover him and make him a power in your life. Without him all of our efforts turn to ashes and our sunrises into darkest nights. Without him, life is a meaningless drama with the decisive scenes missing. But with him we are able to rise from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope. With him we are able to rise from the midnight of desperation to the daybreak of joy. St. Augustine was right—we were made for God and we will be restless until we find rest in him.

There’s a concept in psychology called “decision fatigue” that marketers use to exploit consumers. It appears humans have a limited capacity to make many decisions in one short stretch of time, and the quality of our decisions will deteriorate to the extent that we eventually begin making downright irrational choices. Ever wonder why supermarkets stack the junk food at the checkout counter? After wading through the forty thousand items in the average supermarket,46 we end up with less willpower to resist impulse purchases.

O God, I am open. The decisions I’m facing have become too much. Ease my fatigue with your presence and my hesitation with your peace. Here is an issue that has me tied up in knots. Will you begin to untangle me? What do you want me to know today? O God, I am open.

The alternative to soul-acceptance is soul-fatigue. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the body. When we stay up too late and rise too early; when we try to fuel ourselves for the day with coffee and a donut in the morning and Red Bull in the afternoon; when we refuse to take the time to exercise and we eat foods that clog our brains and arteries; when we constantly try to guess which line at the grocery store will move faster and which car in which lane at the stoplight will move faster and which parking space is closest to the mall, our bodies grow weary. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the mind. When we are bombarded by information all day at work . . . When multiple screens are always clamoring for our attention . . . When we carry around mental lists of errands not yet done and bills not yet paid and emails not yet replied to . . . When we try to push unpleasant emotions under the surface like holding beach balls under the water at a swimming pool . . . our minds grow weary. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the will. We have so many decisions to make. When we are trying to decide what clothes will create the best possible impression, which foods will bring us the most pleasure, which tasks at work will bring us the most success, which entertainment options will make us the most happy, which people we dare to disappoint, which events we must attend, even what vacation destination will be most enjoyable, the need to make decisions overwhelms us. The sheer length of the menu at Cheesecake Factory oppresses us. Sometimes college students choose double majors, not because they want to study two fields, but simply because they cannot make the decision to say “no” to either one. Our wills grow weary with so many choices.

We are unprepared in part because, for the first time, the preponderance of choice has overwhelmed our ability to manage it. We have lost our ability to filter what is important and what isn’t. Psychologists call this “decision fatigue”: the more choices we are forced to make, the more the quality of our decisions deteriorates.5 TOO MUCH SOCIAL PRESSURE It is not just the number of choices that has increased exponentially, it is also the strength and number of outside influences on our decisions that has increased. While much has been said and written about how hyperconnected we now are and how distracting this information overload can be, the larger issue is how our connectedness has increased the strength of social pressure. Today, technology has lowered the barrier for others to share their opinion about what we should be focusing on. It is not just information overload; it is opinion overload.

But the greatest human problems are not social problems, but decisions that the individual has to make alone. The most important feelings of which man is capable emphasise his separateness from other people, not his kinship with them. The feelings of a mountaineer towards a mountain emphasise his kinship with the mountain rather than with the rest of mankind. The same goes for the leap of the heart experienced by a sailor when he smells the sea, or for the astronomer’s feeling about the stars, or for the archaeologist’s love of the past. My feeling of love for my fellowmen makes me aware of my humanness; but my feeling about a mountain gives me an oddly nonhuman sensation. It would be incorrect, perhaps, to call it ‘superhuman’; but it nevertheless gives me a sense of transcending my everyday humanity. Maslow’s importance is that he has placed these experiences of ‘transcendence’ at the centre of his psychology. He sees them as the compass by which man gains a sense of the magnetic north of his existence. They bring a glimpse of ‘the source of power, meaning and purpose’ inside himself. This can be seen with great clarity in the matter of the cure of alcoholics. Alcoholism arises from what I have called ‘generalised hypertension’, a feeling of strain or anxiety about practically everything. It might be described as a ‘passively negative’ attitude towards existence. The negativity prevents proper relaxation; there is a perpetual excess of adrenalin in the bloodstream. Alcohol may produce the necessary relaxation, switch off the anxiety, allow one to feel like a real human being instead of a bundle of over-tense nerves. Recurrence of the hypertension makes the alcoholic remedy a habit, but the disadvantages soon begin to outweigh the advantage: hangovers, headaches, fatigue, guilt, general inefficiency. And, above all, passivity. The alcoholics are given mescalin or LSD, and then peak experiences are induced by means of music or poetry or colours blending on a screen. They are suddenly gripped and shaken by a sense of meaning, of just how incredibly interesting life can be for the undefeated. They also become aware of the vicious circle involved in alcoholism: misery and passivity leading to a general running-down of the vital powers, and to the lower levels of perception that are the outcome of fatigue. ‘The spirit world shuts not its gates, Your heart is dead, your senses sleep,’ says the Earth Spirit to Faust. And the senses sleep when there is not enough energy to run them efficiently. On the other hand, when the level of will and determination is high, the senses wake up. (Maslow was not particularly literary, or he might have been amused to think that Faust is suffering from exactly the same problem as the girl in the chewing gum factory (described earlier), and that he had, incidentally, solved a problem that had troubled European culture for nearly two centuries). Peak experiences are a by-product of this higher energy-drive. The alcoholic drinks because he is seeking peak experiences; (the same, of course, goes for all addicts, whether of drugs or tobacco.) In fact, he is moving away from them, like a lost traveller walking away from the inn in which he hopes to spend the night. The moment he sees with clarity what he needs to do to regain the peak experience, he does an about-face and ceases to be an alcoholic.

An Echo in the Bone. It was a familiar phenomenon. Doctors, soldiers, and mothers encounter it routinely; I had, any number of times. Unable to respond to an immediate emergency while clouded by fatigue, the mind simply withdraws a little, separating itself fastidiously from the body's overwhelming self-centered needs. From this clinical distance, it can direct things, bypassing emotions, pain, and tiredness, making necessary decisions, cold-bloodedly overruling the mindless body's needs for food, water, sleep, love, grief, pushing it past its fail-safe points. Why emotions? I wondered dimly. Surely emotion was a function of the mind. And yet it seemed so deeply rooted in the flesh and this abdication of the mind always suppressed emotion, too. They body resents this abdication, I think. Ignored and abused, it will not easily let the mind return. Often, the separation persists until one if finally allowed to sleep. With the body absorbed in its quiet intensities of regeneration, the mind settles cautiously back into the turbulent flesh, feeling its delicate way through the twisting passages of dreams, making peace. And you wake once more whole.

But you don't think her fit to go to Liverpool?" asked Mary, still in the anxious tone of one who wishes earnestly for some particular decision. "To Liverpool-yes," replied he. "A short journey like that couldn't fatigue, and might distract her thoughts. Let her go by all means,-it would be the very thing for her." "Oh, sir!" burst out Mary, almost sobbing; "I did so hope you would say she was too ill to go." "Whew-" said he, with a prolonged whistle, trying to understand the case; but, being, as he said, no reader of newspapers, utterly unaware of the peculiar reasons there might be for so apparently unfeeling a wish,-"Why did you not tell me sooner? It might certainly do her harm in her weak state! there is always some risk attending journeys-draughts, and what not. To her they might prove very injurious,-very. I disapprove of journeys or excitement, in all cases where the patient is in the low, fluttered state in which Mrs. Wilson is. If you take my advice, you will certainly put a stop to all thoughts of going to Liverpool." He really had completely changed his opinion, though quite unconsciously; so desirous was he to comply with the wishes of others.

The key to being a minimalist is making a routine out of just about everything that is not core to your mission. When decisions are automatic, you skip the conscious deliberation and associated brain activity. You move straight from encountering a situation (e.g., I need to get dressed) to performing an action (e.g., putting on the same shirt as I do every day) without expending energy in between. In a sense, you are cheating fatigue, saving your mental muscle for things that actually matter to you. The more decisions you make automatic, the more energy you’ll have for the work you deem important.

Getting Things Done advocates a policy of immediately doing any task of two minutes or less as soon as it comes to mind. Rival bestseller Eat That Frog! advises beginning with the most difficult task and moving toward easier and easier things. The Now Habit suggests first scheduling one’s social engagements and leisure time and then filling the gaps with work—rather than the other way around, as we so often do. William James, the “father of American psychology,” asserts that “there’s nothing so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task,” but Frank Partnoy, in Wait, makes the case for deliberately not doing things right away.

Everything I thought I understood about disease research, drug development, and the delivery of clinical care has been turned on its head. This isn’t science or medicine as I had come to know them but rather a parade of psychogenic bias, neglect, bad science, flawed public policy, and the political agendas of powerful people and institutions that have sentenced ME patients to the medical equivalent of the most squalid slum in the poorest country on earth. The political decisions taken over the last thirty years have polluted research, perverted clinical care, and shipwrecked ME patients with a life-threatening dose of stigma, disbelief and medically induced harm.

Why is the freedom liturgy so dangerous? Because it perpetuates the slavery to all the other habits—ironically. My life was an ode of worship to omniscience, omnipresence, and limitlessness. No wonder my body rebelled. The freedom liturgy is dangerous for two reasons. First, it doesn’t actually produce freedom. We think that by rejecting any limits on our habits, we remain free to choose. Actually, by barraging ourselves with so many choices, we get so decision-fatigued that we’re unable to choose anything well. Since we’re too tired to make any good decisions, we’re extremely susceptible to letting other people—from manipulative bosses to invisible smartphone programmers—make our decisions for us. The dogged pursuit of this kind of freedom always collapses into slavery, which leads us to the second reason the freedom liturgy is dangerous.

FROM THE WAVERLEY KITCHEN JOURNAL Angelica - Will shape its meaning to your need, but it is particularly good for calming hyper children at your table. Anise Hyssop - Eases frustration and confusion. Bachelor’s Button - Aids in finding things that were previously hidden. A clarifying flower. Chicory - Conceals bitterness. Gives the eater a sense that all is well. A cloaking flower. Chive Blossom - Ensures you will win an argument. Conveniently, also an antidote for hurt feelings. Dandelion - A stimulant encouraging faithfulness. Frequent side effects are blindness to flaws and spontaneous apologies. Honeysuckle - For seeing in the dark, but only if you use honeysuckle from a brush of vines at least two feet thick. A clarifying flower. Hyacinth Bulb - Causes melancholy and thoughts of past regrets. Use only dried bulbs. A time-travel flower. Lavender - Raises spirits. Prevents bad decisions resulting from fatigue or depression. Lemon Balm - Upon consumption, for a brief period of time the eater will think and feel as he did in his youth. Please note if you have any former hellions at your table before serving. A time-travel flower. Lemon Verbena - Produces a lull in conversation with a mysterious lack of awkwardness. Helpful when you have nervous, overly talkative guests. Lilac - When a certain amount of humility is in order. Gives confidence that humbling yourself to another will not be used against you. Marigold - Causes affection, but sometimes accompanied by jealousy. Nasturtium - Promotes appetite in men. Makes women secretive. Secret sexual liaisons sometimes occur in mixed company. Do not let your guests out of your sight. Pansy - Encourages the eater to give compliments and surprise gifts. Peppermint - A clever method of concealment. When used with other edible flowers, it confuses the eater, thus concealing the true nature of what you are doing. A cloaking flower. Rose Geranium - Produces memories of past good times. Opposite of Hyacinth Bulb. A time-travel flower. Rose Petal - Encourages love. Snapdragon - Wards off the undue influences of others, particularly those with magical sensibilities. Squash and Zucchini Blossoms - Serve when you need to be understood. Clarifying flowers. Tulip - Gives the eater a sense of sexual perfection. A possible side effect is being susceptible to the opinions of others. Violet - A wonderful finish to a meal. Induces calm, brings on happiness, and always assures a good night’s sleep.

And he felt it. Rogal Dorn had been feeling it for days, weeks, building up, up, up, rising over him like a black fog, dragging at his limbs, clogging his mind, making him question every decision he made, every order he gave. He hadn’t had any respite at all, of any kind, for three months. Three months! His sharpness was going now, his reactions were slower. A billion functionaries depending on him for everything, reaching out to him, suffocating him with their endless demands, pleas for help, for guidance. A billion eyes, on him, all the time. And he’d fought, too. He’d fought. He’d fought primarchs, brothers he’d once thought of as equals or betters. He’d seen the hatred in Perturabo’s eyes, the mania in Fulgrim’s, stabbing at him, poisoning him. Every duel, every brief foray into combat, had chipped a bit more off, had weakened the foundations a little further. Fulgrim had been the worst. His brother’s old form, so pleasing to the eye, had gone, replaced by bodily corruption so deep he scarcely had the words for it. That degradation repulsed him almost more than anything else. It showed just how far you could fall, if you lost your footing in reality completely. You couldn’t show that repulsion. You couldn’t betray the doubt, or give away the fatigue. You couldn’t give away so much as a flicker of weakness, or the game was up, so Dorn’s face remained just as it always had been – static, flinty, curt. He kept his shoulders back, spine straight. He hid the fevers that raged behind his eyes, the bone-deep weariness that throbbed through every muscle, all for show, all to give those who looked up to him something to cling on to, to believe in. The Emperor, his father, was gone, silent, locked in His own unimaginable agonies, and so everything else had crashed onto his shoulders. The weight of the entire species, all their frailties and imperfections, wrapped tight around his mouth and throat and nostrils, choking him, drowning him, making him want to cry out loud, to cower away from it, something he would never do, could never do, and so he remained where he was, caught between the infinite weight of Horus’ malice and the infinite demands of the Emperor’s will, and it would break him, he knew, break him open like the walls themselves, which were about to break now too, despite all he had done, but had it been enough, yes it had, no it could not have been, they would break, they must not break… He clenched his fist, curling the fingers up tight. His mind was racing again. He was on the edge, slipping into a fugue state, the paralysis he dreaded. It came from within. It came from without. Something – something – was making the entire structure around him panic, weaken, fail in resolve. He was not immune. He was the pinnacle – when the base was corrupted, he, too, eventually, would shatter.

When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome. Unclamp, in a word, your intellectual and practical machinery, and let it run free; and the service it will do you will be twice as good. Who are the scholars who get “rattled” in the recitation-room? Those who think of the possibilities of failure and feel the great importance of the act. Who are those who do recite well? Often those who are most indifferent. Their ideas reel themselves out of their memory of their own accord. Why do we hear the complaint so often that social life in New England is either less rich and expressive or more fatiguing than it is in some other parts of the world? To what is the fact, if fact it be, due unless to the overactive conscience of the people, afraid of either saying something too trivial and obvious, or something insincere, or something unworthy of one’s interlocutor, or something in some way or other not adequate to the occasion? How can conversation possibly steer itself through such a sea of responsibilities and inhibitions as this? On the other hand, conversation does flourish and society is refreshing, and neither dull on the one hand nor exhausting from its effort on the other, wherever people forget their scruples and take the brakes off their hearts, and let their tongues wag as automatically and irresponsibly as they will.

Under the cover of darkness, Kutuzov withdrew that night, having lost an immense number of casualties – probably around 43,000, though so dogged was the Russian resistance that only 1,000 men and 20 guns were captured.106 (‘I made several thousand prisoners and captured 60 guns,’ Napoleon nonetheless told Marie Louise.107) The combined losses are the equivalent of a fully laden jumbo jet crashing into an area of 6 square miles every five minutes for the whole ten hours of the battle, killing or wounding everyone on board. Kutuzov promptly wrote to the Tsar claiming a glorious victory, and another Te Deum was sung at St Petersburg. Napoleon dined with Berthier and Davout in his tent behind the Shevardino Redoubt at seven o’clock that evening. ‘I observed that, contrary to custom, he was much flushed,’ recorded Bausset, ‘his hair was disordered, and he appeared fatigued. His heart was grieved at having lost so many brave generals and soldiers.’108 He was presumably also lamenting the fact that although he had retained the battlefield, opened the road to Moscow and lost far fewer men than the Russians – 6,600 killed and 21,400 wounded – he had failed to gain the decisive victory he so badly needed, partly through the unimaginative manoeuvring of his frontal assaults and partly because of his refusal to risk his reserves. In that sense, both he and Kutuzov lost Borodino. ‘I am reproached for not getting myself killed at Waterloo,’ Napoleon later said on St Helena. ‘I think I ought rather to have died at the battle of the Moskwa.

Elizabeth glanced up as Ian handed her a glass of champagne. “Thank you,” she said, smiling up at him and gesturing to Duncan, the duke, and Jake, who were now convulsed with loud hilarity. “They certainly seem to be enjoying themselves,” she remarked. Ian absently glanced the group of laughing men, then back at her. “You’re breathtaking when you smile.” Elizabeth heard the huskiness in his voice and saw the almost slumberous look in his eyes, and she was wondering about its cause when he said softly, “Shall we retire?” That suggestion caused Elizabeth to assume his expression must be due to weariness. She, herself, was more than ready to seek the peace of her own chamber, but since she’d never been to a wedding reception before, she assumed that the protocol must be the same as at any other gala affair-which meant the host and hostess could not withdraw until the last of the guests had either left or retired. Tonight, every one of the guest chambers would be in use, and tomorrow a large wedding breakfast was planned, followed by a hunt. “I’m not sleepy-just a little fatigued from so much smiling,” she told him, pausing to bestow another smile on a guest who caught her eye and waved. Turning her face up to Ian, she offered graciously, “It’s been a long day. If you wish to retire, I’m sure everyone will understand.” “I’m sure they will,” he said dryly, and Elizabeth noted with puzzlement that his eyes were suddenly gleaming. “I’ll stay down here and stand in for you,” she volunteered. The gleam in his eyes brightened yet more. “You don’t think that my retiring alone will look a little odd?” Elizabeth knew it might seem impolite, if not precisely odd, but then inspiration struck, and she said reassuringly, “Leave everything to me. I’ll make your excuses if anyone asks.” His lips twitched. “Just out of curiosity-what excuse will you make for me?” “I’ll say you’re not feeling well. It can’t be anything too dire though, or we’ll be caught out in the fib when you appear looking fit for breakfast and the hunt in the morning.” She hesitated, thinking, and then said decisively, “I’ll say you have the headache.” His eyes widened with laughter. “It’s kind of you to volunteer to dissemble for me, my lady, but that particular untruth would have me on the dueling field for the next month, trying to defend against the aspersions it would cause to be cast upon my…ah…manly character.” “Why? Don’t gentlemen get headaches?” “Not,” he said with a roguish grin, “on their wedding night.” “I can’t see why.” “Can you not?” “No. And,” she added with an irate whisper, “I don’t see why everyone is staying down here this late. I’ve never been to a wedding reception, but it does seem as if they ought to be beginning to seek their beds.” “Elizabeth,” he said, trying not to laugh. “At a wedding reception, the guests cannot leave until the bride and groom retire. If you look over there, you’ll notice my great-aunts are already nodding in their chairs.” “Oh!” she exclaimed, instantly contrite. “I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” “Because,” he said, taking her elbow and beginning to guide her from the ballroom, “I wanted you to enjoy every minute of our ball, even if we had to prop the guests up on the shrubbery.

Eventually, two Swedish climbers and a Sherpa called Babu Chiri found Mick. By chance--by God’s grace--Babu was carrying a spare canister of oxygen. Neil and Pasang had also now descended, and met up with Mick and the others. Neil then located an emergency cache of oxygen half-buried in the snow nearby. He gave one to Alan and forced both him and Mick to their feet. Slow and tired, his mind wandering in and out of consciousness, Mick remembers little about the next few hours. It was just a haze of delirium, fatigue, and cold. Descending blue sheet ice can be lethal. Much more so than ascending it. Mick staggered on down, the debilitating effects of thin air threatening to overwhelm him. Somewhere beneath the Balcony Mick suddenly felt the ground surge beneath him. There was a rush of acceleration as the loose topping of snow--covering the blue ice--slid away under him. He began to hurtle down the sheer face on his back, and then made the all-too-easy error of trying to dig in his crampons to slow the fall. The force catapulted him into a somersault, hurtling him ever faster down the steep ice and snow face. He resigned himself to the fact that he would die. He bounced and twisted, over and over, and then slid to a halt on a small ledge. Then he heard voices. They were muffled and strange. Mick tried to shout to them but nothing came out. The climbers who were now at the col then surrounded him, clipped him in, and held him. He was shaking uncontrollably. When Mick and Neil reached us at camp two, forty-eight hours later, they were utterly shattered. Different men. Mick just sat and held his head in his hands. That said it all. That evening, as we prepared to sleep, he prodded me. I sat up and saw a smile spread across his face. “Bear, next time, let me choose where we go on holiday--all right?” I began to laugh and cry at the same time. I needed to. So much had been kept inside. The next morning, Mick, Neil, and Geoffrey left for base camp. Their attempt was over. Mick just wanted to be off this forsaken mountain--to be safe. I watched them head out into the glacier and hoped I had made the right decision to stay up at camp two without them all.

The other problem with empathy is that it is too parochial to serve as a force for a universal consideration of people’s interests. Mirror neurons notwithstanding, empathy is not a reflex that makes us sympathetic to everyone we lay eyes upon. It can be switched on and off, or thrown into reverse, by our construal of the relationship we have with a person. Its head is turned by cuteness, good looks, kinship, friendship, similarity, and communal solidarity. Though empathy can be spread outward by taking other people’s perspectives, the increments are small, Batson warns, and they may be ephemeral.71 To hope that the human empathy gradient can be flattened so much that strangers would mean as much to us as family and friends is utopian in the worst 20th-century sense, requiring an unattainable and dubiously desirable quashing of human nature.72 Nor is it necessary. The ideal of the expanding circle does not mean that we must feel the pain of everyone else on earth. No one has the time or energy, and trying to spread our empathy that thinly would be an invitation to emotional burnout and compassion fatigue.73 The Old Testament tells us to love our neighbors, the New Testament to love our enemies. The moral rationale seems to be: Love your neighbors and enemies; that way you won’t kill them. But frankly, I don’t love my neighbors, to say nothing of my enemies. Better, then, is the following ideal: Don’t kill your neighbors or enemies, even if you don’t love them. What really has expanded is not so much a circle of empathy as a circle of rights—a commitment that other living things, no matter how distant or dissimilar, be safe from harm and exploitation. Empathy has surely been historically important in setting off epiphanies of concern for members of overlooked groups. But the epiphanies are not enough. For empathy to matter, it must goad changes in policies and norms that determine how the people in those groups are treated. At these critical moments, a newfound sensitivity to the human costs of a practice may tip the decisions of elites and the conventional wisdom of the masses. But as we shall see in the section on reason, abstract moral argumentation is also necessary to overcome the built-in strictures on empathy. The ultimate goal should be policies and norms that become second nature and render empathy unnecessary. Empathy, like love, is in fact not all you need. SELF-CONTROL

All the substances that are the main drugs of abuse today originate in natural plant products and have been known to human beings for thousands of years. Opium, the basis of heroin, is an extract of the Asian poppy Papaver somniferum. Four thousand years ago, the Sumerians and Egyptians were already familiar with its usefulness in treating pain and diarrhea and also with its powers to affect a person’s psychological state. Cocaine is an extract of the leaves of Erythroxyolon coca, a small tree that thrives on the eastern slopes of the Andes in western South America. Amazon Indians chewed coca long before the Conquest, as an antidote to fatigue and to reduce the need to eat on long, arduous mountain journeys. Coca was also venerated in spiritual practices: Native people called it the Divine Plant of the Incas. In what was probably the first ideological “War on Drugs” in the New World, the Spanish invaders denounced coca’s effects as a “delusion from the devil.” The hemp plant, from which marijuana is derived, first grew on the Indian subcontinent and was christened Cannabis sativa by the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus in 1753. It was also known to ancient Persians, Arabs and Chinese, and its earliest recorded pharmaceutical use appears in a Chinese compendium of medicine written nearly three thousand years ago. Stimulants derived from plants were also used by the ancient Chinese, for example in the treatment of nasal and bronchial congestion. Alcohol, produced by fermentation that depends on microscopic fungi, is such an indelible part of human history and joy making that in many traditions it is honoured as a gift from the gods. Contrary to its present reputation, it has also been viewed as a giver of wisdom. The Greek historian Herodotus tells of a tribe in the Near East whose council of elders would never sustain a decision they made when sober unless they also confirmed it under the influence of strong wine. Or, if they came up with something while intoxicated, they would also have to agree with themselves after sobering up. None of these substances could affect us unless they worked on natural processes in the human brain and made use of the brain’s innate chemical apparatus. Drugs influence and alter how we act and feel because they resemble the brain’s own natural chemicals. This likeness allows them to occupy receptor sites on our cells and interact with the brain’s intrinsic messenger systems. But why is the human brain so receptive to drugs of abuse? Nature couldn’t have taken millions of years to develop the incredibly intricate system of brain circuits, neurotransmitters and receptors that become involved in addiction just so people could get “high” to escape their troubles or have a wild time on a Saturday night. These circuits and systems, writes a leading neuroscientist and addiction researcher, Professor Jaak Panksepp, must “serve some critical purpose other than promoting the vigorous intake of highly purified chemical compounds recently developed by humans.” Addiction may not be a natural state, but the brain regions it subverts are part of our central machinery of survival.

And he pranced around in front of her until Nannerl angrily jumped up, extending her arms in a shove that she didn’t intend to be violent but was. The child fell hard on the floor and hit his head. He didn’t cry. He looked at her with immense surprise, while she, terrified, knelt on the floor: “Wolfgang! Wolfgang! Did you hurt yourself?” He said no, rubbing the sore place on his forehead. Everything vanished in an instant: excitement, the wish to play, the attempt to provoke his sister. She shed copious tears of guilt, and this left him even more bewildered. Then he stood up mechanically and insisted on getting into his nightclothes without any help from her; by himself he removed the heavy bed warmer, got into bed, and an instant before falling asleep gave her a warm smile of understanding. Their parents found them like that, he in a deep sleep, she curled up beside him watching, with reddened eyes. The night walk had made no dent in Leopold’s bad mood. With a gloomy face he went into the adjoining room, sat down on the bed, and began to untie his shoes. Meanwhile Anna Maria whispered to Nannerl, “What happened? Did you quarrel?” She didn’t answer. She was listening with growing anger to the sounds her father made: a rustling of garments hung on the clothes rack, an indistinct muttering of disappointment for who knows what foolish reason, until she went to him and burst out: “Tomorrow Wolfgang won’t play! Do you understand?” “What’s wrong with you? Be quiet or you’ll wake him! Holy shit!” Anna Maria said, joining her. “He’s exhausted! He’s not himself! He’s always tired and sick, he’s lost weight, he’s not growing, and he has two black pouches under his eyes worse than yours. You can’t make us perform like trained dogs every night. Wolfgang should go to bed early!” Leopold, impassive, slowly continued to undress. He was now half naked, but he didn’t care if his daughter saw him in that state; it was a way of communicating to her that her presence had for him the same value as that of a night table or a bedside rug. “I will tell you one time only, Nannerl, and I will not repeat it,” he replied in a low voice. “When you have your own children, you can bring them up as you see fit; for the moment it is I, I alone, who will make decisions for Wolfgang. He endures fatigue very well. Maybe it’s you who are weak, and your thoughtless actions are the proof.” Furious, Nannerl pushed to the floor the rack on which her father had so carefully hung his clothes and returned to her brother, slamming the door behind her.

This is called decision fatigue. It’s a state in which you’re less able to make good decisions because you’re mentally exhausted from making decisions throughout the day.

Decision fatigue is one of the biggest problems plaguing the current age. Either it is buying the grocery or selecting the dress to wear for the day, confounding choices make the day difficult. These are simple choices that shouldn't be a problem at all, but they come to haunt us daily. We are living in the age of multiple choices. Most of them are inconsequential choices, yet, we need to make them. Making a choice invokes some level of the stress response. It leads to decision fatigue.

Over the past twenty years, various researchers have shown that making conscious decisions (“Which shirt do I want to wear?”) as well as engaging in self-control (“I’d better eat the carrots instead of the cookies!”) tire out your brain, much as a muscle fatigues from exercise.4

COLD DEFINITION: a sudden or ongoing exposure to uncomfortably low temperatures PHYSICAL SIGNALS: Shivering Blue lips Yawning Eyes that tear up Chattering teeth Tingling extremities Stuttering speech Skin that’s uncomfortably cold to the touch Dry, cracked lips A stiff jaw that makes speech difficult Numbness in one’s extremities A burning sensation in the skin Clumsiness Slow, shallow breaths Lips that tremble Poor dexterity or increased clumsiness Wrapping the arms around the torso Jumping, shuffling, or dancing to get the blood flowing Clapping one’s hands or stamping one’s feet Shoving the hands deep into the pockets Red and swollen patches on the skin (chilblains) Pulling the limbs tightly into the core Slurred speech Rubbing one’s hands together Tucking one’s hands into one’s armpits Pulling a collar or scarf up over the face Huddling inside a jacket Rounded shoulders, the chin dropped down to the chest Cringing and squeezing one’s eyes shut Turning one’s back to the wind or source of cold Pulling down one’s sleeves to cover the hands Curling and uncurling one’s toes to get the blood flowing Rubbing one’s legs; using friction to create warmth Quivering breaths Slapping oneself Shaking out the arms and legs Flexing the fingers Taking deep breaths in an effort to wake up Curling into a ball; making oneself small Sharing body heat with others Blowing into cupped hands to warm them INTERNAL SENSATIONS: Low energy Fatigue or drowsiness The feeling of even one’s insides being cold A weakened pulse Nausea Loss of appetite A burning sensation in the lungs when inhaling A voice that loses strength MENTAL RESPONSES: Confusion Muddled thinking Impaired decision-making A desire to sleep Apathy CUES OF ACUTE OR LONG-TERM COLD EXPOSURE: Frostbite Hypothermia Gangrene Limb amputation Coma Heart failure Death WRITER’S TIP: Emotional attitude makes a difference when dealing with the cold. A person who can maintain mental acuity and focus will withstand the elements much better than someone whose mental condition is compromised by negativity. Return to the Table of Contents

Sad mood for most of the day: feeling down, anxious, or “empty,” though some of you may feel tense or irritable instead Being less interested and finding less pleasure in almost all hobbies or activities that you used to enjoy (including sex) Feeling excessively guilty, worthless, or helpless Having little energy and feeling fatigued much of the time Having a hard time concentrating, remembering, or making decisions Having trouble sleeping: experiencing insomnia, early-morning awakening, or oversleeping Having trouble eating: overeating and gaining weight or losing your appetite and losing weight Feeling either agitated or slowed down Having thoughts of death or suicide, making suicide attempts

About commitment, the late Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen said, “100 percent is easier than 98 percent.” It’s easier to commit to something 100 percent, because once you’ve committed, you’ve eliminated the internal conflict. You’ve silenced the decision fatigue. You’ve banished the lesser goals.

Decisions fatigue your brain. And routines eliminate decisions. Which ultimately means more brainpower. Routines are not OCD — they are efficient. Use them.

it was easier to stay one-hundred-percent committed to anything than it was to stay ninety-eight-percent committed. One-hundred-percent commitment delivered the knowledge that you knew exactly what you were going to do, and you would never waver from that pledge. Ninety-eight-percent commitment created wiggled room for a back-and-forth decision-making process, which led to decision fatigue. In life, that fatigue turned into poor progress toward goals. In stunts, that fatigue led to hesitation. And hesitation led to accidents. Apparently, it was the theory of a Harvard professor,

Decision fatigue. The importance of creating an effective roadmap to achieve your goals cannot be overstated. But one of the more undervalued benefits of this strategy is that it removes something called decision fatigue, which refers to the deteriorating quality of decisiveness after a long session of decision-making. Again, most people burn out and fail because they haven’t constructed a concrete architecture to specifically dictate what is to be done, where, when, and why. As a result, decisions regarding the priority of a particular day’s actions are often reactive, and not well considered.

Eradicate decision fatigue by constructing a rock-solid plan. Prioritize it. Better yet, when life allows, create an impermeable boundary around it. And do not waver. This way, all your decisions are already made. The thinking mind is not required, free to focus its energies where it is most needed. There is only do or do not. Configure your schedule to ensure you consistently choose “do.

Decision fatigue depletes one's willpower.

This is called decision fatigue. It’s a state in which you’re less able to make good decisions because you’re mentally exhausted from making decisions throughout the day. In other words, your cognitive resources have been exhausted. You’re running on fumes.

the more decisions we’re asked to make, the less cognitive capacity we have available to assess alternatives and make good, nuanced choices—a phenomenon known to scientists as decision fatigue. It’s something you’ll be familiar with if you’ve ever redecorated an apartment and found yourself worn down by the endless choices of paint color or faucet design; perhaps you ended up saying, “I just don’t care.

Practice: Seeking Your Heart’s Desire Desires play a key role in discernment; they help us bring our whole selves to God. Here you will begin to identify your heart’s most basic desires. Prepare yourself to pray by attending first to your body, to any tensions, fatigue, lightness, or energy that it carries. Then attend to your mind, with its busy humming and noisy chatter, its naming, judging, and planning. Invite your body to relaxed attentiveness and invite your mind to take a break for the next few minutes. Paying gentle attention to your own breathing, without trying to change it, may assist your efforts regarding both your body and your mind. 1. Dedicate this time to God. Ask for the light of the Holy Spirit to notice your deepest desires, to name them accurately, and to respond appropriately to what you find. 2. When you are ready, ask yourself, as you sit quietly in the presence of God, “What do I want, right this minute?” 3. When you recognize what it is that you want, give it a name and jot it down in your journal. Return to the relaxed attentiveness. Ask again: “What do I want, right this minute?” 4. Again, notice, name, and jot it in your journal. (Repeat this process, until no more desires surface. After each, return to your relaxed attentiveness.) 5. Now look at all the desires you have named. Notice which seem to be

Avoid making important or long-term decisions when you are fatigued mentally, emotionally or physically.

For eighteen hours we had neither drunk nor eaten anything. My body and mind both felt strangely distant. Both were aching for some relief. In the porch of our tiny single-skinned tent, I reached out to hug Neil again. Then--unceremoniously--I collapsed. “Bear, come on, buddy. You’ve got to get inside the tent properly. Bear, can you hear me?” Michael’s voice brought me round. He had been waiting for us at the col--hoping. I shuffled backward into the tent. My head was pounding. I needed to drink. I hadn’t peed for more than twenty-four hours. Neil and Alan were slowly shedding their harnesses. Neither had the energy to speak. Michael passed me a warm drink from the stove. I was so happy to see him and Geoffrey in one piece. As the afternoon turned to evening we talked. I hadn’t really known fully why Michael and Geoffrey had retreated. They told their story. Of the impending storm and their growing fatigue, as they struggled in the deep snow and thin air. Their retreat had been a decision based on sound mountain judgment. A good call. Hence they were alive. We, though, had kept going. That decision had been based on an element of recklessness. But we got lucky, and that storm never came. Daring had won out--this time. It doesn’t always. Knowing when to be reckless and when to be safe is the great mountaineering game. I knew that. Michael turned to me later as we were getting ready for our last night in the Death Zone. He told me something that I have never forgotten. It was the voice of twenty years’ climbing experience in the wild Rockies of Canada. “Bear, do you realize the risk you guys were taking up there? It was more recklessness than good judgment, in my opinion.” He smiled and looked right at me. “My advice: from now on in your life, rein it back a fraction--and you will go far. You’ve survived this time--now go use that good fortune.” I have never forgotten those words.

If you want to make good decisions as the day wears on, watch for signs of fatigue. Even seemingly trivial levels damage performance. Build in ways for yourself and others to take breaks, whether it’s getting a bite to eat or taking a few minutes to stretch your legs.

Despite his fatigue — and the concerns he'd shared with Juliet last night — he was in a good mood. And why not? Those three words she had spoken to him when he got home were still floating through his head like fairweather clouds across a summer sky. I love you. He smiled and gazed at her lying there under the blanket, her dark hair spread across the pillow like a Spanish fan. God, he loved her, too. He loved her lustrous hair and silky skin, her dark green eyes and pert little nose, even that soft, twangy accent that left everyone who heard it scratching their heads, wondering where she was from. He loved her slim, strong body, the fullness of her breasts, and the way her waist flared into curving, womanly hips ... hips that would, he hoped, bear many more children. She was a calming, practical influence on his reckless nature, the voice of reason where he was the soul of impulse. Oh, yes, he loved her. He loved her courage, her level-headedness, and her devotion. Most of all, he loved the fact that she now trusted him without question, supporting his decisions and standing by him when another woman might have demanded he bring her and her baby straight back to Blackheath and the all-powerful protection of its mighty duke. But

Use auto debit or auto charge to remove decision fatigue in your savings habit. It can supercharge your finances.

How to be there for someone with depression or anxiety 1. Know that you are needed, and appreciated, even if it seems you are not. 2. Listen. 3. Never say “pull yourself together” or “cheer up” unless you’re also going to provide detailed, foolproof instructions. (Tough love doesn’t work. Turns out that just good old “love” is enough.) 4. Appreciate that it is an illness. Things will be said that aren’t meant. 5. Educate yourself. Understand, above all, that what might seem easy to you—going to a shop, for instance—might be an impossible challenge for a depressive. 6. Don’t take anything personally, any more than you would take someone suffering with the flu or chronic fatigue syndrome or arthritis personally. None of this is your fault. 7. Be patient. Understand it isn’t going to be easy. Depression ebbs and flows and moves up and down. It doesn’t stay still. Do not take one happy/bad moment as proof of recovery/relapse. Play the long game. 8. Meet them where they are. Ask what you can do. The main thing you can do is just be there. 9. Relieve any work/life pressure if that is doable. 10. Where possible, don’t make the depressive feel weirder than they already feel. Three days on the sofa? Haven’t opened the curtains? Crying over difficult decisions like which pair of socks to wear? So what. No biggie. There is no standard normal. Normal is subjective. There are seven billion versions of normal on this planet.

We want to learn how to overcome decision fatigue, stop feeling overwhelmed, and bring more peace and joy into our lives.

Don't open the door or talk to strangers," "Unless they're selling something.Then allow them to disclose what they are selling and see if its something which might be useful. First say a 'No' upfront, that's taking charge of the situation from beginning. Make them explain, do not react at all till they finish, but listen carefully. Now pretend that hypothetically you might like it but not sure if it can be beneficial to you in this life. Without delay, even the sound of interest in another life work as a charge-up for salespeople, they will continue product explanation with enhanced passion. Even so, don't open-up your cards, just restart the game, ask about the first thing they explained than the second. Steer them around in circles by submitting the similar question in altered manner. Its always good to exhaust your opponent, make them so tired mentally that they wont be able to hide any fact or benefit. Once you see them fatigued start bargaining about the cost, remember instantly they either want to run away or slap you hard, but...Its a big but...The targets on their head will not allow them that option so they will listen to every demand, call their boss and offer you the second most reasonable price... Do not say yes yet...Tell them you will buy it but still need some time to think...They are at present in a flightless state, so they will promptly offer you the most competitive price possible and secure the deal. Although you can still ask for a corporate goody like a calendar, diary, pen T-shirt or a cap for me, now they might or might not possess anything big, but even a free pencil is a bonus. Our standards aren't that high when it comes to a gift.

I should be dead. But I’m not human, am I?” She swiped a tear of frustration off her face. “Whatever I am makes me stronger, faster, and scary as hell when fighting. I changed, scaled the top of a moving truck, and fought a guy shooting a gun at me.” She ran her hand across her face to wipe away the tears. “I’m a mess. The mud in that ravine got in all the cracks, even my underwear. But the injuries are already almost gone, and somehow, I know all this will heal. Based on you being all pissy, I assume your meeting didn’t go well.” “It took an unanticipated turn.” His tone was odd as he continued to stare at her. “What exactly do you do that involves secrecy and the Crown?” “I can’t tell you.” Something about how he looked at her was different. Her skin tingled like it had before she’d shifted. Survival instinct flared. “Did they order you to…kill me?” It came out of her on a fatigued exhale. Her shoulders drooped. His face remained remote as if trying to wall off emotion. He neither confirmed nor denied, which might as well have been a screaming affirmative. She dropped her chin. He said nothing, so she looked up. He stared intently at her, making her almost shrink in place under the gaze of those thunderous eyes. “Is this when you tell me to leave again?” she asked. “Would you go?” “If they ordered you to kill me, wouldn’t you be forced to come after me? To hunt me down? So, what’s the point in me running unless you like the hunt?” He pushed his hand through his dark hair and stepped away from her. Frustration oozed from him. Seeing him start to lose some of his composure made him less threatening. He wasn’t the robot assassin. She wanted to run her fingers through his thick hair and down his scruff-roughened chiseled jawline to soothe him. Would her touch, if done in comfort, affect him the way she suspected his touch would destroy her? From the way he simply stared at her, she guessed yes. The silence was killing her. “What’s going on here?” “No idea.” He muttered something under his breath that she couldn’t make out. He stepped toward her and slid a finger under her chin to tilt her face upward. Their eyes met and held. “I’m sorry someone hurt you. That you had to fight for your life and went through a windshield.” In a whisper, he added, “I should’ve been there.” The grit in his voice, the despair, as if he’d let her down, packed one hell of a punch. What was she supposed to do with that? Oh dear…God. His hold on her face, how his thumb gently stroked over the skin on her jaw… How he moved in so she could feel the hard surfaces of his body, the concrete chest and abs… All of it swirled together, turning her mind to mush, which was bad when she needed to remain alert. Death… her death was on the line. But she was about to make a very bad decision to let him do whatever the hell he wanted after that declaration. “I made a promise to erase Dom’s kiss. To make you forget. I never go back on my promises.” Like his promise to help her get answers? He didn’t lower his head, but stood there, hesitant. “You’re too hurt right now.” “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She slid her good hand up his shoulders and neck. His muscles twitched under her touch, and his chest rose and fell more rapidly. Feeling how much just her hand on him affected him encouraged her to continue. Cradling the back of his head, she pressed her body into his. As she pulled him toward her mouth, his incredible size and power registered but didn’t intimidate. Didn’t scare her. Her mouth touched his. Warmth on warmth. Once… Twice… Three times. His lips were a lot softer than they appeared. The roughness of his facial scruff scratched her skin.

Reaching California, many of the Pacific-bound servicemen were caught in limbo, waiting for a ship, and that suited them fine. No one doubted that the route to Tokyo would be long and bloody, and they were in no hurry to travel it. The sweating malarial jungles of the South Pacific, the infinitesimal atolls of the central Pacific, all those obscure islands with their alien names—Efate, Espiritu Santo, Malaita, Guadalcanal, Emirau, Tarawa, Majuro, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Ulithi, Palau, Saipan, Morotai, Mindanao, Iwo Jima, Okinawa—they would see them soon enough. “Golden Gate in ’48, bread line in ’49.” That pessimistic slogan, which began circulating in 1942, revealed a great deal about the attitudes of the American servicemen who fought in the Pacific. They fully expected that the war would last twice as long as it eventually did, and they assumed, as a matter of course, that the long effort would exhaust and bankrupt the nation. But the words also indicated a gritty, persevering determination. The Japanese had fatally misjudged them. They were not cowed by the prospect of a long war and a destitute homecoming. They would go on fighting, killing, and dying, overcoming fear, fatigue, and sorrow, until they reached the beaches of the detested empire itself. There, in 1945, the irresistible force of the Yankee war machine would meet the immovable object of the “Yamato spirit,” until two mushroom clouds and an emperor’s decision brought the whole execrable business to an end.

In addition, the person must exhibit at least four of any of the following symptoms: weight loss or gain, too little or too much sleep, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness or guilt, difficulty making decisions or forgetfulness, and preoccupation with death or suicide.

As Peter Drucker said, “In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time—literally—substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.”4 We are unprepared in part because, for the first time, the preponderance of choice has overwhelmed our ability to manage it. We have lost our ability to filter what is important and what isn’t. Psychologists call this “decision fatigue”: the more choices we are forced to make, the more the quality of our decisions deteriorates.

No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It’s different from ordinary physical fatigue—you’re not consciously aware of being tired—but you’re low on mental energy.

In her passionate and meticulously argued book The Change, Australian feminist writer Germaine Greer suggests that society’s aversion to menopausal women is, more than anything, “the result of our intolerance for the expression of female anger.”5 But why do we find women’s rage so unacceptable, so threatening? It is for sure an attitude which is deeply embedded in the culture. Several studies conducted over the past few decades have reported that men who express anger are perceived to be strong, decisive, and powerful, while women who express the same emotion are perceived to be difficult, overemotional, irrational, shrill, and unfeminine. Anger, it seems, doesn’t fit at all with our cultural image of femininity, and so must be thoroughly suppressed whenever it is presumptuous enough to surface. One of the saddest findings of these studies is that this narrative is so deeply ingrained that it even exists among women — and we internalize it from an early age. Soraya Chemaly, American author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger, writes: Studies show that by the time most children are toddlers they already associate angry expressions with male faces … Girls and women, on the other hand, are subtly encouraged to put anger and other “negative” emotions aside, as unfeminine. Studies show that girls are frequently discouraged from even recognising their own anger, from talking about negative feelings, or being demanding in ways that focus on their own needs. Girls are encouraged to smile more, use their “nice” voices and sublimate how they themselves may feel in deference to the comfort of others. Suppressed, repressed, diverted and ignored anger is now understood as a factor in many “women’s illnesses,” including various forms of disordered eating, autoimmune diseases, chronic fatigue and pain.6 We hide our anger by refusing even to use the word — instead of saying we’re utterly furious, we talk about being “annoyed,” “upset,” or “irritated.” We take refuge in sarcasm, we nurse grudges, or we simply withdraw. And as a consequence of these actions and attitudes, anger is an emotion that, more often than not, makes women feel powerless — not just because we’ve been made to feel as if we’re not allowed to express it, but, accordingly, because we’ve never learned healthy ways to express it.

When weighing up the pros and cons of a big decision, it’s important to try to remember this, although it’s easy to get paralyzed by overthinking and decision fatigue. As a general rule, once we have made a decision, it tends to feel as if it was not as bad as we thought it would be. The key is to make a decision and then make it work.

We have lost our ability to filter what is important and what isn’t. Psychologists call this “decision fatigue”: the more choices we are forced to make, the more the quality of our decisions deteriorates.

Whether discomfort comes in the form of anxiety, fear, pain, uncertainty, or fatigue, navigating through it is what toughness is all about. Not bulldozing or pushing through, but navigating. Sometimes that means going through, around, under, or waiting until it passes. When we frame toughness as a decision to act under discomfort, it allows us to see that toughness is far more than merely having grit or grinding through. We can actively change how we appraise, experience, and respond to discomfort. Each step along the way requires a different skill set and approach. It requires many tools, not just a hammer.

A piece of this is the psychology of decision making. An individual who makes a decision becomes more invested in its outcome. Another factor was that, for all our technology, our leadership simply did not understand what was happening on the ground as thoroughly as the people who were there. The ability to see video footage and hear gunfire from an operation as it unfolded was a tremendous asset, but a commander on the ground can comprehend the complexity of a situation in ways that defy the visual and audible: everything from temperature and fatigue to personalities.

Step #5 to being your Future Self is automating and systemizing your Future Self. How can you better systemize your desired Future Self? What could you simplify and eliminate from your life, to free yourself from decision fatigue and lesser goals? What barriers and filters could you create to protect your time and attention? What could you automate, such as a weekly investing strategy? Where could you find a who to handle some of the hows that are outside your zone of genius?22

There’s an assumption out there that good leaders are decisive and clear. They know the priorities and don’t let themselves get tangled up in agonizing thoughts about details. If you’re an executive, you want others to see you this way. Decisiveness gives the impression of confidence. And confidence helps others have confidence in you. As an entrepreneur, professional or executive, you know that making decisions is a large part of your daily life. You signed up for this – making decisions, big and small. So what make it difficult for smart, driven executives to be fully decisive? Indecisiveness is not just about decision fatigue or over-responsibility, although they may play a role. It’s about your executive functioning (EF) and how you’re managing it. To make difficult decisions, you need great EF – the brain-based skills for goal-directed behaviour and everything that goes with it. By virtue of where you are in your career, your EF is already well developed. And yet, you’d like to be more decisive. So what’s going on when you feel stuck in indecisiveness? Your particular brand of EF – your brain profile – may be highly comfortable with abstract thinking. Perhaps too comfortable. And that’s what can take you into endless ambivalence. Have you noticed that when you can’t land on a decision, there’s a sense of not quite settling? If you’re accustomed to thinking in the abstract, you may find it uncomfortable to land on a choice. If you want to be muscularly decisive, look at your emotions. Are they heightened? Triggered? If so, your EF will definitely go offline. You’ll experience mental fog, poor focus, and rumination. How do you respond when you’re triggered? Do you put your emotions aside? Do you tell yourself there’s no time during the work day to deal with them? Emotions don’t go away just because you decided not to pay attention to them. They’re still there, bubbling under the surface. If you try to think past the emotions, you won’t be effective. EF functions best when the brain is calm and clear. But emotions are very useful too – when you choose to pay attention to them. They’re a gold mine of information about risks, values, priorities and self-management. You need a balance of emotional information and facts to make a good decision. The most powerful leaders make decisions with a combination of intuition, past experience, emotional intelligence and cognitive flexibility. If you cut off these valuable data sets, the result will be indecisiveness. So how do you become confidently decisive? 1. Check in. Ask yourself: Who do I want to be as I make this decision? In what way may I be too comfortable with the abstract? What might I be resisting? Recognize that No decision IS a decision. Ask yourself: How do I benefit from making no decision? What if no decision is the best decision? Commit to making a decision anyway. Ask yourself: In what way can I make this decision more clear? Who will I be once I’ve made this decision? Accept that some ‘good’ decisions will feel uncomfortable. Ask yourself: What do I believe about what makes a good decision? What will deepen my comfort with what I don’t have control over? You can be a good leader and still be indecisive from time to time. The next time you have a difficult decision to make, draw from both emotional and factual information. And don’t forget to enjoy the afterglow of clarity! With love and gratitude, Lynda

1.          They were perfect… initially. We’ve discussed this one, but it’s worth mentioning again. A narcissist wants you to believe they’re totally into you and put you on a pedestal. Once they have you, though, they stop trying as hard and you end up being the one working to keep them. 2.          Others don’t see the narcissist the way you do. It’s hard enough to see it yourself, but when those around you, especially their friends and family, make excuses for them, you start doubting yourself even more. Stick to what you see. 3.          They’re making you look bad. In order to maintain their facade of perfection, they make you look like a bad person. Usually this involves spreading rumors, criticizing you behind your back, or creating lies you supposedly told. The worst part is that when you try rectifying the situation, or laying the blame where it should belong, the narcissist uses your defense to back their own lies. It’s frustrating because the generous, wonderful person they displayed initially is what those around you still see, even if you see them for who they really are. 4.          You feel symptoms of anxiety and/or depression. The toxic person may have caused you to worry about not acting the way you’re expected to, or that you haven’t done something right or good enough. In making this person your entire world, you may lose sleep, have no interest in things you used to or have developed a, “What’s the point?” attitude. You essentially absorb all of the negative talk and treatment so deeply, you believe it all. This is a dangerous mindset to be in so if you feel you’re going any steps down this path, seek outside help as soon as possible. 5.          You have unexplained physical ailments. It’s not surprising that when you internalize a great deal of negativity, you begin to feel unwell. Some common symptoms that aren’t related to any ongoing condition might be: changes in appetite, stomach issues, body aches, insomnia, and fatigue. These are typical bodily responses to stress, but if they intensify or become chronic, see a physician as soon as you can. 6.          You feel alone. Also a common symptom of abuse. If things are really wrong, the narcissist may have isolated you from friends or family either by things they’ve done themselves or by making you believe no one is there for you. 7.          You freeze. When you emotionally remove yourself from the abuse, you’re freezing. It’s a coping mechanism to reduce the intensity of the way you’re being treated by numbing out the pain. 8.          You don’t trust yourself even with simple decisions. When your self-esteem has been crushed through devaluing and criticism, it’s no wonder you can’t make decisions. If you’re also being gaslighted, it adds another layer of self-doubt. 9.          You can’t make boundaries. The narcissist doesn’t have any, nor do they respect them, which is why it’s difficult to keep them away even after you’ve managed to get away. Setting boundaries will be discussed in greater detail in an upcoming chapter. 10.    You lost touch with the real you. The person you become when with a narcissistic abuser is very different from the person you were before you got involved with them. They’ve turned you into who they want you to be, making you feel lost and insecure with no sense of true purpose. 11.    You never feel like you do anything right. We touched on this briefly above, but this is one of the main signs of narcissistic abuse. Looking at the big picture, you may be constantly blamed when things go wrong even when it isn’t your fault. You may do something exactly the way they tell you to, but they still find fault with the results. It’s similar to how a Private feels never knowing when the Drill Sergeant will find fault in their efforts. 12.    You walk on eggshells. This happens when you try avoiding any sort of conflict, maltreatment or backlash by going above and beyond to make the abuser happy.

When you are depressed, it can feel like every decision takes up 1000% more brain power, and you can get fatigued by simply trying to make a plan and follow through with it.

pictured in the will curve, decision produces peace and rest. Indecision, on the contrary, is a source of fatigue. For the brain then overloads itself with energies which find no outlet.

The 5 Scientific Truths Behind Excellent Habits Truth #1: World-class willpower isn’t an inborn strength, but a skill developed through relentless practice. Getting up at dawn is perfect self-control training. Truth #2: Personal discipline is a muscle. The more you stretch it, the stronger it grows. Therefore, the samurais of self-regulation actively create conditions of hardship to build their natural power. Truth #3: Like other muscles, willpower weakens when tired. Recovery is, therefore, absolutely necessary for the expression of mastery. And to manage decision fatigue. Truth #4: Installing any great habit successfully follows a distinct four-part pattern for automation of the routine. Follow it explicitly for lasting results. Truth #5: Increasing self-control in one area of your life elevates self-control in all areas of your life. This is why joining The 5 AM Club is the game-changing habit that will lift everything else that you do. The 3 Values of Heroic Habit-Makers Value #1: Victory demands consistency and persistency. Value #2: Following through on what is started determines the size of the personal respect that will be generated. Value #3: The way you practice in private is precisely the way you’ll perform once you’re in public.

There is also a model that explains the downside of making many decisions in a limited period: decision fatigue.

While whites were still the majority, they established preferences for blacks and Hispanics that took such deep root that Congress and state legislatures have been powerless to abolish them. These programs would provoke outrage if they were practiced in favor of whites, but they have been partially curbed only by state ballot initiatives and equivocal Supreme Court decisions. Demography would change this. In 2006, the state of Michigan voted to abolish racial preferences in college admissions and state contracting, but the measure passed only because whites were still a majority. Eighty-five percent of blacks and 69 percent of Hispanics voted to maintain racial preferences for themselves. When they have a voting majority nothing will prevent non-whites from reestablishing and extending preferences. Are there portents in the actions of Eric Holder, the first black attorney general, appointed by the first black president? J. Christian Adams, a white Justice Department lawyer resigned in protest when the department dropped a case of voter intimidation the previous administration had already won by default against the New Black Panther Party. In this 2008 case, fatigue-clad blacks waved billy clubs at white voters and yelled such things as “You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!” Mr. Adams called it “the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career.” He believed the decision to dismiss the case reflected hostility to the rights of whites. He said some of his colleagues called selective prosecution “payback time,” adding that “citizens would be shocked to learn about the open and pervasive hostility within the Justice Department to bringing civil rights cases against nonwhite defendants on behalf of white victims.” Christopher Coates, who was the head of the voting section of the Civil Rights Division, agreed with this assessment. In sworn testimony before Congress, he called the dismissal of the Black Panthers case a “travesty of justice” and described a “hostile atmosphere” against “race-neutral enforcement” of the Voting Rights Act. He said the department had a “deep-seated opposition to the equal enforcement of the Voting Rights Act against racial minorities and for the protection of white voters who have been discriminated against.” How will the department behave when whites become a minority?

Making decisions is exhausting. Anyone who has ever configured a laptop online or researched a long trip—flight, hotels, activities, restaurants, weather—knows this well: After all the comparing, considering, and choosing, you are exhausted. Science calls this decision fatigue.

I have come to that fork in the road where one must decide how to live and how to die. No wonder I am agitated to the point of falling into state of irreversible catatonia. Self-doubt and apprehension, along with intensifying self-loathing and fatigue beseech me to stop questing. Why am I am plagued by the dueling dynamism that binds my existence? Does the ball of fears and doubts, and chain of self-hatred and personal exhaustion, which manacle me, inhibit other people?

DECISION FATIGUE

The boxer should take care to hide the moment of attack and its very nature, by inverting in any way the attention of the opponent from the chosen target and the intended decisive hit. Therefore, it is necessary to accurately mask the starting position to the task of making misleading movements. In addition, every boxer should be able to hide his physical and moral state from an opponent. The skills of concealing one's weakness, fatigue or effects of the blow often save the boxer from failure.

When an experience is an unusually powerful emotional event, there may be a series of reactions. These are both common and normal. Signs and symptoms of critical-incident stress include the following: 1. Physical—enduring fatigue, sleep dysfunction (either needing too much or insomnia), change of appetite (eating too much or too little), gastrointestinal upset, headache, backache, chills, nausea, muscular twitches or tremors, shock-like symptoms (especially in acute stress), hyperactivity, or its opposite, underactivity. 2. Emotional—anger, irritability, fear, grief, anxiety, guilt, depression, feeling overwhelmed, identification with the patient(s) in a rescue, emotional numbness, feelings of helplessness or hopelessness. 3. Cognitive—memory loss, especially anomia (the inability to remember names); inability to attach importance to things other than the incident; concentration problems; loss of attention span; difficulties with calculations, decision-making, and problem-solving; flashbacks; nightmares (especially recurrent ones), amnesia for the event; violent fantasies; confusing the importance of trivial and major tasks.

Making decisions is exhausting. Anyone who has ever configured a laptop online or researched a long trip – flight, hotels, activities, restaurants, weather – knows this well: after all the comparing, considering and choosing, you are exhausted. Science calls this decision fatigue. Decision fatigue is perilous: as a consumer, you become more susceptible to advertising messages and impulse buys. As a decision-maker, you are more prone to erotic seduction. Willpower is like a battery. After a while it runs out and needs to be recharged. How do you do this? By taking a break, relaxing and eating something. Willpower plummets to zero if your blood sugar falls too low. IKEA knows this only too well. On the trek through its maze-like display areas and towering warehouse shelves, decision fatigue sets in.

Psychologists call this “decision fatigue”: the more choices we are forced to make, the more the quality of our decisions deteriorates.5

The 5 Scientific Truths Behind Excellent Habits Truth #1: World-class willpower isn’t an inborn strength, but a skill developed through relentless practice. Getting up at dawn is perfect self-control training. Truth #2: Personal discipline is a muscle. The more you stretch it, the stronger it grows. Therefore, the samurais of self-regulation actively create conditions of hardship to build their natural power. Truth #3: Like other muscles, willpower weakens when tired. Recovery is, therefore, absolutely necessary for the expression of mastery. And to manage decision fatigue. Truth #4: Installing any great habit successfully follows a distinct four-part pattern for automation of the routine. Follow it explicitly for lasting results. Truth #5: Increasing self-control in one area of your life elevates self-control in all areas of your life. This is why joining The 5 AM Club is the game-changing habit that will lift everything else that you do.

A PRAYER O God, I am open. The decisions I’m facing have become too much. Ease my fatigue with your presence and my hesitation with your peace. Here is an issue that has me tied up in knots. Will you begin to untangle me? What do you want me to know today? O God, I am open.

I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve had to work through layers of grief, anger, frustration, and fatigue after a life experience only to realize later the real reason for all that negativity was I had a particular desire I had not yet named. When that desire went unmet, I felt it. But I didn’t know why. And so that disappointment came out in other weird ways such as irritability, insecurity, lashing out, and silent treatments. It’s remarkable the lengths my subconscious will go to in order to mask my truest desire.

Homogeneity was a small price to pay for the erasure of decision fatigue. It liberated our minds to pursue other endeavors, like work.

Sergeant Dix told me that at Fort Bragg they found that two to three days of constant tension was what it took to figure out if a soldier was going to break. Most who made it to the Special Forces Qualification Course could take anything the Army cared to throw at them for forty-eight hours. But by day three, with reserves depleted and nothing but misery on the horizon, a soldier’s core became exposed. His baseline ability. His essence. Superficially, this was evidenced by the decision to quit or continue, a temptation the drill sergeants dangled every time they spoke.  The real game, of course, was mental. Beating the Q boiled down to a soldier’s ability to disassociate his body from his mind, his being from his circumstance. This was relatively easy during the mindless procedures — the hikes, runs, and repetitive drills that form the backbone of military training. Disassociation became much tougher, however, when the physical activity was paired with judgment calls and problem solving. If a soldier could engage his higher-order thinking while simultaneously ignoring the pain and willing his body to continue beyond fatigue, then he had a chance at making it to the end. If he couldn’t, then the strength of his back, heart, and lungs didn’t matter.  Dix had concluded that the Q-Course was as much about self-discovery as a prestigious shoulder patch.  Katya was in that discovery phase now.  The big question was what we’d do if she decided to quit. She broke the silence after a few miles. “Do you ever get used to it?” “The killing?” “Yes.” “We’re all used to killing — just not people. We kill when we spray for bugs, or squash a spider, or buy a leather bag, or order a hamburger. I don’t think of the individuals I’ve killed as people any more than you thought of the last steak you ate as Bessie.

The freedom liturgy is dangerous for two reasons. First, it doesn’t actually produce freedom. We think that by rejecting any limits on our habits, we remain free to choose. Actually, by barraging ourselves with so many choices, we get so decision-fatigued that we’re unable to choose anything well.

There is no going back. The decision made, forced across the line by him during frantic months when they were wracked by excitement and fatigue in equal measure, while escorted by numerous estate agents around cramped flats and ex-council properties with lawns like thickets.