How do you decide your favorite ice cream flavor, whether you’re a dog person or a cat person, whether you want to be a doctor or an architect, whether to live in the countryside or in the city? Faced with such light or deeply profound questions, finding an answer can be simple but sometimes even paralyzing.
This brings to mind a very distant memory…
Years ago, while I was in university, I happened to attend a lecture during a medicine course that I never thought would remain etched in my mind after so much time. It was about medicine, but very indirectly, in one of those courses that seemed less important at the time. Easy exams to fill the schedule and reach the goal of graduation. Yet I remember that it made me think about something in a way I had never thought of before.
It was a lesson on Health Economics. I thought it was about budgeting, keeping track of healthcare expenses, or similar things. Instead, it was about how to make decisions in public health and the costs of those decisions.
To simplify: the price you pay to open a primary care clinic is not opening a vaccination center. Deciding on one thing means “sacrificing” (an improper term) another equally important and valid thing. The decision is made by obviously evaluating the health needs of a population at that moment and in the long term.
At the time, I was younger and thought that choices were absolute, either right or wrong. And if I chose something, I risked making unforgivable mistakes. What struck me was that choosing one path does not necessarily mean that it is the only right one but simply one of the possible ones, and perhaps the apparently better one at that moment, not in an absolute sense.
Faced with a crossroads and uncertainty, we sometimes tend to choose rationally and materially, which means seemingly intelligently and shrewdly. But choosing this way means letting something outside of us, like societal expectations or unwritten rules that we feel we must adhere to, make the choice. In short, choosing exclusively after a material calculation is about minimizing risks and following convenience. Perhaps not even in health economics, despite having to follow more objective and scientific criteria, can choices be made that only follow profit. The goal is health, which is intangible and often immeasurable.
So, how else can we decide?
We can choose, to put it romantically, by following the heart. Said this way, it seems like a pathetic, superficial, and childish approach. So, we can put it another way: we follow intuition and our sensitivity. That is, we choose by trying to be as consistent as possible with what is inside us, rather than what is outside. Then between two paths, perhaps there won’t simply be the right one to follow, but the more authentic one.
Choosing this way is certainly riskier and more uncomfortable. But what if discomfort, alternatives, and being outside the norm are the criteria to follow to choose and bet on ourselves?
I think of all this every time I have to decide.
In the end, I almost no longer ask myself if it is the best choice but if I would be interested in dealing with the alternative future that is opening up before me.
Maria Giubettini
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