Embracing Wholeness is the Key to Easier Decisions

How many decisions are we making every minute? Big choices, small ones, important ones, and seemingly insignificant ones—decisions are a constant part of our experience. So many decisions are made in a single day that it’s impossible to keep track of them all. Is there a way to make the process easier? Could decisions even be made without any stress? What if the way we approach decision-making could transform the worry and fatigue that often go along with it?

In this post, I’d like to explore how a non-dual perspective—a worldview that challenges materialist assumptions—can relieve the stress of decision making. The fruits of this shift can eliminate decision fatigue, reduce stress, and ultimately make the entire process natural.

Decision Fatigue and the Physical Toll of Choice

We’ve all experienced that sense of mental exhaustion after making countless decisions, whether they were trivial or significant. This mental drain has been recognized by researchers and is referred to as decision fatigue. One scale used to measure decision fatigue, the Decision Fatigue Scale (DFS), asks individuals to assess how mentally drained they feel after making decisions over a period of time. A study on social media usage showed that decision fatigue not only depletes mental energy but can even reduce physical strength.

A fascinating study highlights this connection between decision fatigue and physical performance. Participants in two groups were asked to lift weights until they reached failure, then engage in different activities for 30 minutes. One group scrolled through social media, while the other watched a documentary on space flight. After the 30-minute session, participants returned to lift weights again. The results were startling: those who spent time scrolling through social media exhibited significantly reduced strength. The researchers suggest what caused physical depletion was the many choices that are involved with scrolling. Though no physical movement was happening, participants’ mental efforts took a physical toll.

This study shows just how powerful decision fatigue can be. The mental exertion of making decisions—even trivial ones—affects our physical energy and our ability to perform. It’s easy to see why this would be a problem. When we don’t know what to do, our minds can spiral into overthinking, exacerbating decision fatigue and making the decision-making process even harder.

The more you churn through thoughts, the more difficult it becomes to find clarity. Overthinking only thickens the confusion and contributes to more of a physical toll. So, how can we break this cycle?

The Trap Within Consideration

When we face a decision, we generally go through these stages:

1. Situation: Something happens, and we recognize it as a problem that requires a decision.

2. Options: We identify possible choices or solutions.

3. Consideration: We evaluate these options, weighing the pros and cons.

4. Decision: We choose an option and move forward.

Real transformation lies in the consideration phase. This is where our minds tend to become overwhelmed with possibilities, doubts, and fears about the potential outcomes. This is where overwhelm starts, and even before that- emotions like fear, sadness, and isolation can spring up, adding insult to injury.

Interestingly, the subjective experience of this process points to what is happening. It’s not about the number of decisions we make; it’s about how we relate to the experience of decision-making. It is how we think of ourselves that causes suffering. This is where a shift in perspective—tuning into awareness— includes ourselves as part-whole of a unified reality that is wholeness. This can be transformative.

Dissolving The Object-Oriented Mind

What we are is wholeness. One of the key concepts that can help us navigate decision-making with more ease is the idea that we are not isolated objects in the world. This is a fundamental shift from the materialist worldview, which assumes that everything—including us—is a separate object. According to materialism, consciousness is produced by brain particles, and we are isolated from the world around us. The key here is that materialism is an assumption and the mind-body problem has never been solved under this framework.

However, a non-dual perspective challenges this assumption. It suggests that everything is interconnected, and that at a fundamental level, all things are part-whole of one reality. This perspective draws from philosophies that have existed for thousands of years, including Eastern spiritual traditions and certain Western philosophical schools of thought.

In this view, our minds are not isolated separate-entities but are part of a vast, interconnected web of existence. One mind is like a cell in a body—operating with its own functions, but ultimately part of a much larger system. In fact, all cells emerge out of one zygote, and there is a blueprint within the zygote for all that we are in this very moment. Similarly, each individual is a zygote of universal consciousness, just as each cell has a perspective but isn’t aware of the larger organism’s entire experience. We can call this relationship of parts-whole of one reality the wholeness that we fundamentally are. Understanding that the blueprint for the decision is encoded in our very nature takes the pressure off of ourselves to think our way into the right choice.

Though some may speculate that challenging the current materialist paradigm is ‘woo’, there is an important social role that metaphysicians play in shifting outdated modes of thought into more intelligent social learning.

How To Re-Structure Our Own Experience of Decision Making

So, how does this integrated, non-dual perspective help with decision-making?

When we make decisions from a materialist viewpoint, we often feel like our happiness depends on making the "right" choice. We believe that our well-being depends on choosing correctly, and this belief adds immense pressure to the decision-making process. We ruminate over potential outcomes, imagining the consequences of each decision, and we become trapped in a cycle of anxiety and overthinking.

However, from a perspective of non-duality or wholeness, we do not consider ourselves as isolated objects whose happiness depends on external outcomes. Instead, we recognize that we are part of a greater whole, and that no single decision can define our happiness. This understanding allows us to make decisions more freely and with less emotional turmoil.

In practical terms, this means approaching the decision-making process with a sense of observation and listening. Instead of identifying ourselves as an object in the decision, we can see the decision as an external event that doesn’t define our fulfillment. Coming from a place of inherent fulfillment we can evaluate our options calmly and rationally, without the fear that one wrong choice will ruin everything.

The Freedom of Letting Go

By letting go of the materialist belief that our happiness depends on the "right" choice, we free ourselves from the stress of decision-making. We can make decisions from a place of centeredness, knowing that whatever the outcome, our happiness is not tied to the result. This allows us to approach decisions with a sense of calm and clarity.

Furthermore, embracing a part-whole, inherently whole sense of self opens us to deeper intuitions and insights that come from a place beyond the mind. When we stop overthinking and rely on our intuitive sense of what feels right, we can make decisions more easily and with greater confidence. Awareness and knowing are characteristics of a unified reality, both on a cosmic scale and a personal one.

The Benefits of Self-Investigation

The key to integrating this wholeness-perspective into our decision-making process is self-investigation. This involves observing thoughts and reactions without identifying as them. It’s about noticing when we feel anxious or overwhelmed by a decision and recognizing that these feelings are just mental phenomena based on the history of the body, not reflections of our true nature.

By practicing self-investigation, we can catch ourselves when we start to identify as an object in the decision-making process. We can learn to pause, observe, and ask ourselves: Can I see what I am not? In that moment, we can recognize that we are not the anxious, decision-making "self" but the awareness that observes these thoughts. By asking this question we are actively investigating who we are taking ourselves to be at that moment. Am I some dream character in a fantasized thought- or am I awareness itself, right now?

This practice gradually reduces the anxiety and pressure around decision-making and the habit of materialist thinking, allowing us to act from a place of peace and clarity rather than fear and overthinking.

"Part of being who we really are is noticing actively what we are not."





Summary

In the end, decision-making doesn’t have to be a source of stress and fatigue. By investigating the validity of the object-oriented worldview and considering if we may be unified by our very nature, we can approach life with ease. We can let go of the need for our thoughts to decide the future. We can re-enter our lives as the awareness that is always unfolding with newness.

The next time you face a difficult decision, try zooming out and observing who you are taking yourself to be. Let go of the pressure to get it "right", let go of the idea of yourself as an object, and trust that your fulfillment doesn’t depend on any outcome.

Ask yourself often: Can I see what I am not? Living in the answer to this question is reorienting toward what we are, and in this way decision-making can become a more peaceful and intuitive process.

May your decisions be taken lightly, and your moments be naturally of peace.

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