Decide with Your Gut Feelings.

If Spock from Star Trek really existed, he would not be able to get out of bed in the morning. He wouldn't be able to decide when to get up, or which side of the bed to roll off of, or why he should bother to get up at all, or what he would do if he ever got that far.  Why?  Because he was a Vulcan--perfectly logical, without emotion--and you can't make a decision without emotion.

The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, by David  Brooks, cites research suggesting that people can't make decisions without emotions.  According to the author, a logical mind can brainstorm options, list advantages and disadvantages, but can't decide what is the BEST option without checking which option FEELS best.  So, in a way, no matter how much analysis we do, no matter how logical we think we are, we ultimately pick the option we are emotionally drawn to.  In the end, our decision is based, at least in part, on our gut feelings.

Brooks describes a fascinating case of a very smart man who suffers brain damage late in life and loses most of his emotion.  He continues to have above average intelligence and excellent memory, but he loses the ability to make decisions.  He gets lost in trivial details, analyzing things that don't matter, spending hours deciding what to eat for lunch.  His psychologist, Antonio Damasio, in his book Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, concludes that his patient can't decide because he lacks emotion.  Something is important only if it FEELS important.  Without feelings, we can't decide what to do next.