The Case for "Selfish Giving"

Thinking about: Decision-making

In previous posts, I examined thoughtful decision-making. When confronted with an important decision, Feelers will simply do what feels right. In contrast, Thinkers will employ a three-step process:

• They will lay out their options. In doing so, they might brainstorm to generate options that aren’t obvious.

• They will assess the costs and benefits of implementing each option. The costs they consider will include not only monetary costs but costs in terms of the time and energy it would take to implement an option. Likewise, the benefits they consider will include not only the monetary benefits of implementing an option but its benefits in terms of quality of life.

• They will implement the option with the best ratio of benefits to costs.

Feelers will forgo this process. This is in large part because they tend to be both thought-averse and impatient. Meanwhile, Thinkers will embrace it because they know that employing it greatly increases the chance that the decision they make will optimize their future well-being. They also know that by using this process, they diminish the chance that in the future they will regret the decisions they make.

In the second step of the decision-making process, Thinkers consider the likely outcomes of making a decision, as well as the desirability of those outcomes. Assessments of desirability, however, must be made with respect to a set of values. Is getting pregnant a desirable turn of events? It depends on whether a Thinker wants to have a baby.

It is tempting to assume that in the future, you will continue to value whatever you currently value. Think back on your life, however, and you will discard this assumption. To see why I say this, compare the values you held as a seven-year-old with those you held as a seventeen-year-old—and by values, I mean not so much your moral values, as what you wanted in daily life. If you are old enough to do so, compare the values you held as a seventeen-year-old with those you held as a 27-year-old, a 37-year-old, and so on, decade by decade.

If you are lucky enough to be a 97-year-old, you can think back on a very long life and might come to realize that it was comprised of stages. For a time, you might have been a student, then a teacher, then a parent, and so on. In each life stage you were, metaphysically speaking, the same person as you had been in the previous stage, and at age 97, you are the same person as the seven-year-old you used to be. With the passing decades, however, your values were likely to have changed dramatically. You might come away thinking of yourself as an actor, who in the course of your life has played a variety of roles.

This change in values complicates—but does not invalidate—the decision-making procedure I have described. Thinkers will choose to implement the option with the best ratio of benefits to costs. This choice, however, must be made with respect to a value system. Doing this would be straightforward if people had fixed value systems, but they don’t. As they age, their values typically change dramatically. If you are a Thinker, you will respond to this predicament by doing—what else?—some research.

You might, to begin with, make a point of reading the memoirs of people who lived to a ripe old age. Doing this will help you put your current life stage into proper perspective. You can also use the older people you encounter in everyday life as unwitting research subjects. I am in my mid-seventies, and when I encounter someone in their eighties—or better still, in their nineties—I ask them, in the most discreet and indirect manner possible, to tell me what I need to know about my next life stage. I invariably come away from such conversations with the realization that in coming years, I will likely encounter a variety of obstacles. It isn’t unusual for me to take these obstacles into account in my subsequent decision-making.

Having acknowledged that your values are going to change with the passage of time, you are confronted with a second question: Which future life stage, with its corresponding set of values, should you prioritize in your decision-making? Suppose, for example, that you are a twenty-seven-year-old. Should you make decisions that benefit you today, or should you instead make decisions that will benefit you when you turn, say, 67? There is no simple answer to this question, other than to say that when making an important decision, you should take all of your future life stages into account.

Along these lines, suppose a 27-year-old comes into an inheritance. Yes, he can use it to buy the car of his (current) dreams, but if he is a Thinker, he will take into account the well-being of his 67-year-old self—if he is lucky enough to live that long. He knows that he won’t want to spend that stage of his life worrying about money and might therefore decide to use the inheritance, not to buy the car but to start a retirement account. I should add that the Thinker won’t regard doing this as making a sacrifice; to the contrary, he will regard it as giving a “selfish gift.” It is selfish in the sense that by starting the account, he is giving a gift to his future self.

Take a moment to reflect on the efforts of your past selves. They might not have enjoyed learning how to read, swim, and play the piano. They also might not have wanted to learn a second language. Your current self, however, might be glad that they went to all that trouble. Thanks to their efforts, you can read, swim, play the piano, and are bilingual. With this in mind, you might want to make a conscious effort to take steps today that, although they require self-discipline and perhaps some drudgery on the part of your current self, will be much appreciated by your future selves.

Need more food for thought? Click here for my past essays, listed by title.