Weigh it

Counting is not weighing

A long list feels like a winner. In the job example, Take it has five reasons and Stay has four, yet the scale leans to Stay. One reason, an hour more on the road every day, outweighs several small ones put together.

Count

Weigh

How many light reasons (each weighs 1):

4

Put every reason in view at once

In 1772 Benjamin Franklin told his friend Joseph Priestley why hard choices stay hard: “all the Reasons pro and con are not present to the Mind at the same time”. One day the money looms, the next day the drive does. Written down, or set on a scale, every reason sits in view together, so the one you thought of last does not win just for being last.

Strike out what cancels

His method, in his own words: “where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out”. When one reason equaled two on the other side, he struck out all three; when two equaled three, all five. That is what Strike out equal weights does above. Watch the needle as you strike: it settles back exactly where it was, because equal weights come off both pans. What changes is how much you have to look at. Read the whole letter at Founders Online.

A second example: two reasons against one

Pick Newer car above and strike three times. The third strike takes two reasons for Buy it, “better gas mileage” and “room for the kids’ gear”, each weighing 1, against one reason for Keep mine, “weeks of shopping and haggling”, weighing 2. One plus one is two, so all three come off together.

Each pan loses 2, so the gap between them is what it was, and the needle stays put. What you gain is a shorter list. Once nothing else cancels, the real choice is left in view: a safer car against five years of payments.

What the method cannot do

The weights are still your guesses. Franklin said so himself: reasons cannot be weighed with the precision of algebra. One heavy reason can outweigh a pile of light ones, so check your heaviest weight hardest.

And the scale shows you what you already think. It does not decide for you. Franklin told Priestley he could not tell him what to decide, only how. Even after the strikes, he gave it a day or two more in case anything new came to mind.

When the scale will not tip

Sometimes the pans come out level, or so close that one dot flips the answer. That tells you something: the choice is close, and either answer may be a good one.

Then more weighing will not settle it. Do what Franklin did and give it a day or two in case anything new comes to mind. Hear the other side, and ask someone who knows you. Ruth Chang’s talk, under Watch, is about this kind of choice: why some stay hard when neither side is better, and what to do then.

Hear the other side first

Most of us fill one pan first: the side we already lean toward. Before you trust the lean, fill the other pan. Write the best reason for the answer you are leaning against, and give it an honest weight. Proverbs 18:17 warns that the first case you hear seems right until someone questions it, and 18:13 calls answering before you have heard folly.

Tell what you feel from what is true

A weight is a feeling turned into a number. Feelings count: dreading a long drive is real. But “I hate driving” and “the drive adds an hour a day” are different kinds of reason, so say which is which. Proverbs 21:2 and 16:2 are blunt about it: our own ways look right to us, and it is the LORD who weighs the heart. Ask someone who knows you whether your weights look honest.