Why am I doing this? People seldom ask that question. On very rare occasions they do, it is mostly to rationalize the decision they’ve already made. Asking that question is considered to taint somehow the experience that follows and what is more important than our experiences (or the memory of them). Advices like: “don’t overthink it” or “follow your heart” are our way to say “don’t hurt your head with thinking”. I’m not saying that we have to stop everything we are doing until we have all the facts and understand in-depth everything, but there is some reasonable balance that is rarely there.

If we ask that question, most likely it’s post-factum, in a poor attempt to find an excuse if something makes us feel guilty or uneasy. We need to find the party we are victims of (a parent or a partner usually do the job). We hate to think that we are free and we like to think to ourselves as a product of our genes or the environment (both out of our control) in different proportions depending on the situation. The subject of free will (and do we have one) is a big one. Without going into a long argument, let just say that “free will” does not exist in a literal sense. It’s a social construct we need as a state of mind to better our decision-making process. If you insist on the strict meaning of “free will”, then yes, I’m advocating the delusion of having one because it’s not actually there but we need it.

Do I personally indulge all that unwise behaviour as well? Of course, I do, but having some level of understanding that I’m doing it helps me to make better decisions and to ease some of the negative emotions related to decision making.