Factual Decision Making

When my Master or I make a decision it is very factually based. It is not based on emotions or the latest internet hype. He gets the facts and makes the decisions from that. My Master believes that by making decisions based on fact rather than emotions or hype, he is making the best possible decision for our family. This is something he has tried to instill in me.

One of the many things I have learnt is to be able to sift through junk research. Junk research is based on assumptions and fails to see the whole picture. Like women who have more than one TV in their home have a higher rate of breast cancer than those with one or less TV. It failed to account for the availability of medical care, age, whether or not the women being pooled were all screened for breast cancer and etc. It is that sort of junk science that gets people going in the wrong direction with things.

When I am making a decision based on fact, I will look at the research from about the last 30 years. I won’t do this online; I will actually go to the library. It maybe old fashioned but material on the internet is not reliable, anyone can write it and leave out important pieces of information.

Making a decision based on our emotions or going with our gut may not always be the best idea. We have to make sound decisions and sometimes that means logic over emotions. For instance, when a child is sick we may want to cuddle the child to make them feel better. When what we need to be doing is getting the child medicine and making sure the child stays hydrated. Sure, we may be able to cuddle the child but taking care of the needds of the child comes first.

I see a lot of people jumping on the band wagon of internet hype. It happens all the time, someone twist words around and state things that are not true to get people to join a movement or change their lifestyle. People are not researching the claims but just going with the crowd because it is popular right now. It is sort of like a fad diet, here one day and gone the next.

-emma