Thursday, June 11, 2009 . 7:38 PM

Let's talk about coin-flipping today.

Every now and then there is a situation in life where you can't make a decision between two things; usually you'd have to give up one for the other. When the suggestion to flip a coin to decide which choice to take is put forth, usually it is scoffed at or waved away as a flippant manner of deciding.

Why should it? I think it's quite a viable way of deciding things. Let's look at it this way: When people come to an impasse between two decisions, usually it's either a 50-50 or 60-40 way of leaning to either choice, hence the difficulty in deciding. When you flip the coin, it will give you an answer. It will solve your dilemma by leaving it up to chance. If you're not particularly leaning in either direction, why not let chance decide it for you?

But here's the beauty of flipping a coin for these decisions: Once the coin tells you the answer, and you don't really want to follow what the coin has chosen, you HAVE ALREADY MADE YOUR CHOICE. Logical? For example, let's say I want to either a) watch a movie or b) play pool but only have time for one. I flip a coin and it tells me to play pool. But I don't feel like playing pool and would rather watch a movie anyway. I have already made my choice. The coin just makes the answer clearer to me, that the decisions are not really 50-50 anyway.

You may argue that if that's the case, then any decision in the world could be made by flipping a coin. Such as major decisions say in stocks or dropping a bomb on another country or whatever, and that would be stupid. I totally agree with you, but you must note that the flipping coin theory only works after ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, and you're still in a 50-50 and cannot decide. In such major decisions, I doubt you'd have the opportunity to fall to a 50-50 and have to rely on a measly coin.

So don't laugh at chance, don't wave off the coin. A simple coin toss can make things much clearer for you once in a while.

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel