Decision Making

Several years ago, I found myself in a village with some other students.

Earlier that week, a truck carrying lumber had collided with a taxi, leading to the death of seven people.

The local king summoned the oracle to find out what to do to cleanse the land.

The oracle said they will need seven virgins to carry the sacrifice to stop evil from repeating itself in the town.

The town crier went round town declaring a curfew and explaining that seven virgins will be carrying sacrifices for cleansing the land.

The students, in their usual manner, took the announcement to mean seven virgins will be used for sacrifice.

The news spread quickly.

Students were the strangers in the community and, therefore, the perfect victims for sacrifice.

All the students who were virgins began to leave the community.

I had a friend, Toyin, she was an undergraduate studying statistics.

She said, "I am not a virgin. One of the reasons I lost my virginity was so that I could become useless for these deities who seem to have a taste for virgins who kept themselves, while sparing the ladies who were non-virgins.

I did the calculation and decided it is safer not to be a virgin than keep my virginity and fall victim to the gods."

We all had a good laugh.

I then explained to her that people deliberately distorted the information being shared.

The virgins were not to be sacrificed; they were meant to help carry the sacrifice for the cleansing of the land.

It is very easy to misunderstand others due to our fears and prejudices.

We add a bit and subtract a bit from the information we get and inflate such with our preconceptions and biases.

We must all learn to read and listen to information and relay such as accurately as we can so that we don't distort what we have heard.

I share the story above to encourage us to understand the power of information and how it leads us to decision-making.

Some students ran away from the school as soon as they heard the information so that they don't fall victim. Toyin chose to lose her virginity because she calculated that the gods liked virgins, and she didn't want the gods to like her.

Information shapes our decision-making and action.

-GSW=