Jahner is the founder of The Good Decision Project.
Considering the current conflicted state of affairs in our country, we need to reexamine how we make decisions for ourselves and democracy. As the next election cycle accelerates, we are looking at the most important decision Americans make in their public roles. But how do we arrive at the critical threshold called a vote?
The Good Decision was designed to address both the process of consideration and the binary yes/no of decision execution. The Good Decision Project is a call for collaboration in a collective reframing of our decision discipline in personal lives and democracy.
On our website, the collaboration portion of the project is an ongoing blog hosting a discussion of the nature of the much used and abused word “good.” This forum strives to provide followers with an opportunity to explore and discover how their personal sense of good interacts with today’s challenges and decisions. Every true decision we make has cause and consequence in our homes, communities and beyond.
The bottom-line requirement of The Good Decision asks us to face and accept responsibility for the consequences of our decisions, both positive and negative. Part of the hard truth we deal with in this project is accepting that no decision is perfect and no adult is perfectly innocent. This forum on “good” is open but stays within the guardrails of the ethical admonition “Do no harm.”
The due diligence of the Good Decision proposes four levels of identity found in a democratic society: personal sense of good, community sense of good, public/political sense of good and, finally, sense of service. We provide simple exercises an individual can complete to begin practicing the discipline. For most decisions, the process of The Good Decision can take less than a minute, but more complex decisions that involve local community, work settings and the polls, the process can take weeks or months for a single decision.
The neurological workings of decision-making are more uniform across humanity than one would think. The context, history, content and timing infused into the decision process, however, are infinitely varied. The uniform approach of The Good Decision process is designed to allow for the diversity found in a free democracy. Out of that diversity evolves culture and the vibrant differences that make life at once interesting, creative and profoundly challenging. This diversity is generated by the inherent subjectivity found in the individual and human communities.
We have found we can manage our actions by managing the nature of our subjectivity or unconscious bias – the source of how we initially experience “good.” As an adjective, good is used to convey a summarized sense of positive meaning within us as individuals and among ourselves as a community. After all considerations, including religion, the question is: “Does the individual’s initial sense-of -good align with the true, anticipated and witnessed consequences of the option chosen?” The decision’s consequence and individual accepting upfront responsibility for the option chosen underlies the entire process.
The subtext of The Good Decision is “Living well with the harder truth.” As Al Gore told us regarding the environment so many years ago, the truth of our situation was and still is “inconvenient.” By developing your decision making skills, you can live well with the hard truth. The Good Decision Process is described in detail on the website, but allow me to summarize the four levels of consideration or “pauses.”
Pause I: Sense of good
How do I immediately feel about this option? If you have the time to ask this question, it is not a non-conscious life-or-death emergency. You will live, so take the time to breathe and do a body check. The “gut check” is a solid clue to your body’s first impression, but rarely is the first take the complete answer and almost never in complex situations. Take a breath.
Pause II: Sense of community
How will the option I am considering impact my community? Who will thrive and who will suffer? Everyone has a few people whose approval or disapproval matters at the level of physical health. Deep conflict at this level can be experienced as physical pain. Any decision has a consequence of suffering for someone ... who suffers? Who or what thrives? You are now becoming aware of the true cost of this option. Stay conscious and take another breath.
Pause III: Sense of democracy
What are the limits of my tolerance for views and values other than my own or my community’s? Where does my tolerance end? How hard have I worked on non-violent language and my skills in conflict resolution? The sum of tolerance in a democratic society has a direct relationship to civil violence or its absence. The Constitution and the rule of law represent the frames around which the people exercise their skills in transforming their individual and community values/narratives into wisely articulated, just legislation. What is your sense of your democracy?
Pause IV: Sense of service
Given the considerations of the first three levels of identity, how can I best serve? This decision model was initially developed and presented to professionals, almost all of whom had legal issues woven into the decisions that carried heavy burdens of personal and community need. All the personal conflict, ethics and morality charges, audits, and investigations find their source in the mishandling of one of these levels of identity in service. Do your due-diligence and serve well.
Our national healing originates with you, at home, and locally with the decisions you make in daily life. Disagree? Let’s talk and work something out together.
An Independent Voter's Perspective on Current Political Divides
In the column, "Is Donald Trump Right?", Fulcrum Executive Editor, Hugo Balta, wrote:
For millions of Americans, President Trump’s second term isn’t a threat to democracy—it’s the fulfillment of a promise they believe was long overdue.
Is Donald Trump right?
Should the presidency serve as a force for disruption or a safeguard of preservation?
Balta invited readers to share their thoughts at newsroom@fulcrum.us.
David Levine from Portland, Oregon, shared these thoughts...
I am an independent voter who voted for Kamala Harris in the last election.
I pay very close attention to the events going on, and I try and avoid taking other people's opinions as fact, so the following writing should be looked at with that in mind:
Is Trump right? On some things, absolutely.
As to DEI, there is a strong feeling that you cannot fight racism with more racism or sexism with more sexism. Standards have to be the same across the board, and the idea that only white people can be racist is one that I think a lot of us find delusional on its face. The question is not whether we want equality in the workplace, but whether these systems are the mechanism to achieve it, despite their claims to virtue, and many of us feel they are not.
I think if the Democrats want to take back immigration as an issue then every single illegal alien no matter how they are discovered needs to be processed and sanctuary cities need to end, every single illegal alien needs to be found at that point Democrats could argue for an amnesty for those who have shown they have been Good actors for a period of time but the dynamic of simply ignoring those who break the law by coming here illegally is I think a losing issue for the Democrats, they need to bend the knee and make a deal.
I think you have to quit calling the man Hitler or a fascist because an actual fascist would simply shoot the protesters, the journalists, and anyone else who challenges him. And while he definitely has authoritarian tendencies, the Democrats are overplaying their hand using those words, and it makes them look foolish.
Most of us understand that the tariffs are a game of economic chicken, and whether it is successful or not depends on who blinks before the midterms. Still, the Democrats' continuous attacks on the man make them look disloyal to the country, not to Trump.
Referring to any group of people as marginalized is to many of us the same as referring to them as lesser, and it seems racist and insulting.
We invite you to read the opinions of other Fulrum Readers:
Trump's Policies: A Threat to Farmers and American Values
The Trump Era: A Bitter Pill for American Renewal
Federal Hill's Warning: A Baltimorean's Reflection on Leadership
Also, check out "Is Donald Trump Right?" and consider accepting Hugo's invitation to share your thoughts at newsroom@fulcrum.us.
The Fulcrum will select a range of submissions to share with readers as part of our ongoing civic dialogue.
We offer this platform for discussion and debate.