The "Do Good, Feel Good" Paradox

Never act based on your emotions.

Except for love.

But anything else — anger, sadness, joy, jealousy, or anxiety — is useless in decision-making.

Sure, everyone feels these emotions. But you can feel an emotion and not act on it.

The question that should guide your decisions is:

“What is the RIGHT thing to do?”

One of my favorite quotes comes from the Lumineers song “Aint Nobody’s Problem”:

Well in my heart I know it’s true
That I can’t go on loving you
And that’s the truth it don’t feel good, but honey it feels right

The right thing doesn’t always feel good in the moment, but over time I’ve discovered a paradox:

The more you prioritize what is right over what feels good now, the better you will feel over time.

The decisions that make you feel comfortable now — avoiding difficult conversations, cutting corners, etc. — only prolong the inevitable. You’re stacking a house of cards, and the higher you stack it, the bigger the mess when it comes toppling down.

But if you can resist the urge to take that shortcut and just move through discomfort, you will find that discomfort never lasts. You will save yourself months and years of pain because you can cut your losses and move on to the next opportunity.

But you can’t reason through everything. Sometimes you take a stand based on principle and a “gut feeling”, but those are few and far between.

Those decisions where you should stick it out just a little longer will withstand all the scrutiny you put the decision through, and the act of surviving the intense examination is what makes it worth holding on to.

In other words, don’t make the decision that feels good; make the decision that feels right.