Acting quickly is not always the best way to respond to a crisis. Sometimes it is better to take a little time and think about what you are going to do to respond. That being said, there are times when you should make your decision upon instinct, but those times aren’t during crises.
A crisis is, by definition, “a time when a difficult or important decision must be madeâ€1 Typically, when you are making a difficult or important decision, you want to take a relatively long amount of time (compared to an instant) to decide what you are going to do to either avert the crisis or make the best of it.
1Definition courtesy of Oxford English Dictionary
There are some circumstances where you don’t want to make decisions quickly; however, these circumstances are never crises. The example given in the writing prompt for this essay was tennis. You want to go on instinct so that you actually make the plays. It doesn’t take an educated decision to play tennis. You may want to train your instincts what to do, so that you hit the ball in the right direction or with proper stroke.
Overall, during most crises, you want to think before you act. If you go purely off of instinct, there is a high chance you will make the situation worse. If your house is burning down, and you rush to the nearest door, put your hand on the knob, and run through, you may:
1). Burn your hand on the knob
2). Rush into a burning room
3). Be running away from the exit instead of towards it
You need to be careful when you encounter a situation where you have to deal with a crisis. Think before you act.