Consciously or unconsciously, when we make a decision, our goal is to avoid mistakes and reach the best possible outcome. To fully understand mistakes, we must first understand their opposite – the best possible outcome. There are a few conditions for the outcome to be the best possible. Firstly, it must have the most optimal solution, meaning that such variables as time and effort must be considered, and it must bring the best possible result. Secondly, by definition, there can be only one the best; therefore, there can be only one the best possible outcome. There can be other satisfying outcomes, but only one of them is the best. And thirdly, the best possible outcome must leave us better off in the long run. We must view decision-making as a chain of events rather than separate random events, and if our decision made us better off in the short term but worse off in the long term, it can’t be considered the best possible outcome. Now that we have the conditions for the best possible outcome, we must ask what happens if we do not arrive at it. Does that mean we made a mistake? In this blog, I will question our perception of success in decision-making by arguing that reaching the best possible outcome is statistically improbable, and most of the time, the decision we make is a mistake in the sense that everything that is not the best possible outcome can be called a mistake.  

Besides being cognitively challenging, decision-making impinges on the fear that we might choose wrongly. The common perception is that arriving at a mistake in the decision-making process is equal to failure. Suppose the best possible outcome can only be one, and it equals success. In that case, everything apart from it – any other decision we might make, good or bad, equals failure, in other words, a mistake. Our chances of success in reaching the best possible outcome when making a decision are very low because out of all possibilities, we have only one chance to choose the best possible outcome. This means every time we make a decision, we most likely arrive at a mistake. Now, in this sense, I am using the word mistake to represent all the possible decisions, from good to bad, which are not the best possible outcome. 

Another issue is that after making the decision, we could never know if it led us to the best possible outcome. The decisions we make have very little importance on their own without the totality of their outcomes. The decision is never an isolated event but rather contributes to a chain of events. One bad decision can eliminate a chain of good decisions and vice versa. This means that we can never be sure about the overall impact of our decisions. We can judge its short-term outcomes (or intermediate-term outcomes), but we can never know its overall outcome because no one decision makes the chain. We can’t know how decisions made in the past could influence any future decisions. Besides not being able to know if we chose the best possible outcome, we can’t even know if the decisions we took were good or bad in the long run because we can’t compare the outcome we achieved with what could have happened if we had made a different decision. We can’t say that if we had made a different decision, it would have led to a better (or worse) outcome because, firstly, we don’t know what other events will take place before we reach that outcome. Secondly, we can’t know what effect a different decision might have on the same outcome. We can only say (without certainty) that it would have led to a different outcome. Additionally, even when we know that we made a wrong decision, we cannot know how we should have acted to avoid the mistake or arrive at the best possible outcome.  

There is a possibility that the decisions you see now as successful will lead to destruction in the long run. But it is also possible to think that you made a mistake now, which, in the long run, will make you better off. So besides saying that every decision we make is a mistake because, probabilistically, it is very unlikely that it is the best possible outcome, we also can’t evaluate if those mistakes are good or bad in the long run.

So far, we have accepted that we are most likely to make a mistake, as the best possible outcome is statistically improbable, but that none of the mistakes is absolutist. One bad decision can be corrected further down the chain of choices. So, do we always make mistakes because we can’t ensure the best possible outcome, or never make mistakes because the decisions we make are not deterministic and can be adjusted? Furthermore, every decision that needs adjustment equips us for similar decisions in the future.

Nevertheless, there is another side of the coin – false positives. It is very difficult to imagine that the decision that brought a satisfying outcome could be wrong. However, the deductive argument shows that it is possible to arrive at a true conclusion using false premises. The problem with this is that the true conclusion is a false positive. 

Example: 

Premise 1: All people with blue eyes are liars (False)

Premise 2: Tom has blue eyes (True)

Conclusion: Tom is a liar (True) – but not because he has blue eyes. However, we still arrived at the correct answer using false premises. 

The problem with false positives is that we rarely question the decisions which led us to satisfying outcomes. Even worse, we adapt the flawed methodology for future decision-making, leading to more false positives or wrong decisions. If we get straight to the wrong decision, that is the best thing that can happen because it allows us to see our mistakes and reassess our methods. The problem occurs when the faulty method keeps bringing satisfying outcomes, and instead of reevaluating, we assume that the method works and keep using it. Such a faulty method exposes us to possible bad decisions and, more importantly, might deprive us of a better outcome by simply offering a suboptimal decision.

To conclude, we can’t bulletproof our decision-making, and most likely, we can’t reach the best possible outcome, but as long as our mistakes aren’t destructive, we should be okay and should continue making imperfect decisions. Overthinking whether our decision will lead to the best possible outcome is simply unsustainable. However, it is important from time to time to reassess our decision-making methodology to be sure there are no false positives. Because sometimes we can keep getting satisfying conclusions only to arrive at full-blown destruction afterwards. I’ll call it the “Sons of Anarchy” paradox when one uses a wrong methodology, which, through blind luck, produces false positives only to arrive at an overall destruction in the long run. To sum up, most of the decisions we make are mistakes in the sense that they are not the best possible outcomes, and we can never know if our decisions will turn out to be good or bad in the long run. The only variable we have control over is the ability to adjust our decisions according to the circumstances caused by previous decisions.