I wonder how people behave when faced with a dilemma. I am sure all of us have faced one or the other during our short span of life. The unfortunate one's go through a lot many of them(whether they learn something or not from such situations is a topic of another discussion which would entail a lot of psychological analysis).
How exactly do we define dilemma ?? Dilemma is a situation where you have two paths in front of you to choose from, none of which is good or probably both of them can be good. A simple example of this would be that 2 of your best friends have had a fight and you need to take a side. Both seem equally justifiable but in a different sense and when you look at it from both individual's perspective they are right. Now where do you go ?? Both can be emotionally right or logically right or it might so happen that one is emotionally right and one is logically right. Lets come back to this at a later time when you have figured out the mystery.
Breaking down dilemma's into simple equations is not possible but why not give it a shot and see where it leads to. Dilemma when represented mathematically would mean that you have 2 options in front of you i.e. P1 and P2 and if you take P1 you would reach A and if you take P2 you would reach B. The problem is that there is no surity whether you would reach A or B whichever path you choose (P1 or P2). To make it a little complex lets try to put in the concepts of profit and loss here. Path P1 will make you gain G1 and Path P2 will make you gain G2. Again here G1 and G2 are not assured.
G1 and G2 can be your priorities, goals in life, destination you want to be at, your ambitions or however you want to define them. Now lets take a scenario where you gain G1 and G3 if you choose P1 whereas you gain G2 and G4 if you choose P2. In such situaions the choice is easier where all you would like to know is whether G1+G3 is greater or lesser than G2+G4(we still assume there is no surity of getting either G1+G3 or G2+G4 whichever path you choose). To complicate things further lets introduce the concept of probability here. There is a 30% chance that when you take path P1 you might end up with G1+G3 and a 45% chance that if you take path P2 you might end up with G2+G4.
Who has said that there can be only gains when we take a risk. Can we try and account for the losses that come with the any of the paths we choose. Again it is safe to assume here that these losses might be in form of your priorities in life, ambitions etc. A final equation that I can arrive it would be as follows:
Upon taking Path P1 there is a probability of 30% that I might end up with (G1+G3+G5-L1-L3) and upon taking Path P2 there is probility of 45% that I might end up with (G2+G4-L2).
The above equation can be formulated based on the number of gains and losses you will have or stated correctly what goals you would be able to reach if you choose a path and what sacrifices you would be making when choosing the same path. Various situations might arise depending on the magnitude of G1, G2, G3.....L1, L2.......
For example if G1, G3 and G5 magnitude is small i.e. small goals are achieved whereas G2, G4 are big goals then it might be worth taking path P2 for there is more probability of success but if we reverse the situation where the magnitude of G1,G3,G5 is large whereas the magnitude of G2, G4 is smaller then would you take Path P1 considering there is a low probability of 30% of it being a success?? Now do consider the losses L1, L2, L3.....and draw up similar situations and see where you find yourself. Have we arrived at a conclusion yet?
How much ever we try its not easy to calculate our paths or decisions that we are going to make, for the beauty of life lies within the fact that it is unknown. Most decisions which are taken depend on the state of the mind of the person who is taking the decision. It would primarily depend of the set of circumstances that a person was raised in i.e. the values and attitudes that he has gained from his/her surroundings. Its a perennial battle between the "head vs. heart" and we try to justify the decisions which we take. Most of the times decisions taken by head may be called as "practical" but does that mean that the heart has no role to play. Why is it that most of the successful people took the greatest decision of their life from the heart??? M K Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi), Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mother Teresa to name a few were great personalities who followed their heart and the world knows them for it.
Having said that we cannot deny the role their head played in their lives in achieving the kind of success they have. Why is it that when the head takes the upper hand we are able to justify it really well but when you make a decision going by your heart and you succeed in the same you attribute it to luck? Are we afraid to take our chances in life and see if we can make the best out of it? Or do we want to play it really safe and live a mundane life like everyone else does? I so wish to know how Richard Branson would have been today had he not taken his chances.
I would leave you to ponder over the eternal "head vs. heart" debate for it has no correct answers but I would definitely like to end with a quote:
"Every time you take a big risk in life, no matter how it ends up, you are always glad you took it."
