Do we only do things we want to do?

[Angrboda]

One of the interesting facts is that, for certain decisions, that we decide anything at all. I'm not going to address the OP at the moment, at least not directly, but I think the lion's share of our decision making process is driven by an attempt to manage and minimize anxiety or discomfort. This comprises two complimentary strategies. First, decreasing activities which increase our anxiety. Second, by increasing activities that decrease our anxiety. Many people suggest that desire for happiness plays a role, but I'm not sure where or if it does. Regardless, when faced with choices, sometimes for whatever reason, we delay and delay our decision, perhaps because of complexity, perhaps out of conflicting goals, whatever. Like Buridan's ass, we can get stuck between multiple demands such that we can't resolve them rationally. But the peculiar thing is that we don't stay in that state. As time proceeds, our anxiety about the decision increases. Eventually we succumb to the anxiety over our indecision and make a choice, whether we are ready or not. It's like the fuse on a bomb. Once lit, it will only go on so long before we force ourselves into one state or another. It's like a silent timer in our heads, preventing us from getting stuck. It's weird.

Which brings me to another digression. How do we have a sense of time? We think of ourselves as living in the moment, but somehow we're able to stitch together the relations between moments to construct a sense of time passing, such that we can, roughly, say when a minute has passed, as opposed to five minutes, as opposed to an hour. Surely we don't have timers in our heads which alert us to the passage of time, but how does that happen? Why aren't we more like the person with no long term memory for whom every moment is new? Why isn't every moment like the first moment, a stunning and unexpected revelation?

Final digression. Why do we accept the fact that we sleep, yet are the person who went to sleep the night before. When I go to sleep, I never remember falling asleep. And I don't remember being asleep; I was unconscious. Yet each night we sleep as if nothing happened, and the renewal of consciousness each morning is treated as nothing at all. Yet if we lose consciousness at any other time during the day, it's a totally different experience. Why is that?