Time to decide

Applying for jobs is exciting and demanding at the same time. Why? Not only because of the insecure feeling whether I will get the job and when, but I also have to decide which is the most important priority for me. 

Options are many: 1)I stay where I am in Brussels and try to get a nice well paid job 2) I follow my boyfriend in another country and try to find a job there, despite of the difficult unemployment situation and the fact that I do not speak the language yet 3)I apply to my home country with plenty international experience in my CV 4)I do an internship in another country and have a new cultural experience, but give up the normal salary 5) I search for jobs in any other country.

Like this it looks surprisingly simple, but underneath there are many distracting feelings: will I be fine without my friends and family and for how long, am I ready for a long distance relationship or give up on my own dreams for another person, will I be financially ok, will I ever find a job in that situation. For the moment, these are just worries, not yet reality. I haven't decided yet.

I have been writing about decision making already before, lately making decisions has been very challenging. 

Nevertheless, the book I recently got from a friend, The decisive moment by Jonah Lehner, made things much clearer again. The book gives many examples based on scientific research on how our brain works. The main message is: we should make decisions based on our feelings or rational reasoning depending on the situation.

The most surprising thing was that in some situations it is better to trust on intuition and emotions. When a group of consumers were asked to rate a variety of jams from best to worst just based on a quick tasting sample, they rated the jams in similar order as a group of experts. Nevertheless, when another group was asked to  rate the jams and then justify their choice, the results were very different. Many of them rated the worse jam as the best and so on. The test proves that too much logical reasoning can actually jeopardize our preferences and make us make worse decisions.

On the other hand, our brains cannot handle too many rational variables at the same time. For example, when buying a sofa we need to think about the price, how the sofa will fit with other furniture and colours, how it will feel, what material is it made of, its size etc. If we try to take all the criteria into consideration, the decision becomes almost impossible. Therefore, in these situations it is better to trust on our instincts: I buy a nice sofa that fits well with other furniture despite of the high price.


When making simple situations like choosing a strawberry jam or wine, we also have several options. Some research have shown that people cannot recognize an expensive wine among cheaper wines. Therefore in these situations we can trust on rational thinking and for example, take the cheapest or the biggest can.


My decision about the job is not a simple one. Now I also understand why trying to think logically has made me feel even more confused. I try to reason rationally and then convince myself and be certain about my choice. And then some inner feeling starts knocking on my chest. Here I have understood: things will be ok. What is best for my CV or for someone else is not necessarily best for me.


Tomorrow a free day: I forgot all the rational reasoning and I let my subconscious mind digest this a bit and then consciously trust more on my intuition. Let's see.