It struck me recently, while debating a personal choice I’m facing, how much our choice-related mechanisms are stuck in the era of dearth: dearth of options, dearth of resources, dearth of opportunities… And while I acknowledge that dearth is still a daily condition for many in this world, many others still have long moved away from that condition, and yet they still make choices as if they don’t really have much choice.
So we tend to settle for ‘good enough’ or ‘second (or third, or fourteenth) best’, or – worse still – our usual choice, without giving it much thought, and without a seeming willingness to explore other options and really consider what is worth having.
Nowhere is this tendency more prevalent than in the bombardment of ‘free’ offers that most of us in the developed world suffer daily: from free newspapers through free media (or free at the point of use) to free opinions (freely-given, without checking that someone is willing to listen). And it gets increasingly hard to remember that somewhere along the line we have made a choice – even if it doesn’t feel like it – to settle for that stream of information, opinion, product…
So how do we choose? Well, the first step – it strikes me – is to push the Off button: to say No to (some) things that are coming our way, in order to experience the (temporary) void that will serve to give us a better idea of what we want to fill it with. In a similar way that nutrition choices need to be much more mindful in times of plenty, it’s time to rethink all our other choices too… So perhaps rather than accepting the often-mindless free daily paper, it’s time to deliberate and decide to buy – and then read – a book, or a piece of music; rather than surfing TV channels in the hope that something will attract our attention sufficiently, it’s time to make an appointment to watch – or not watch, listen – or not listen.
Taken further, this also applies to the people (individuals and communities) we surround ourselves with. How often have we maintained certain relationships without really enjoying or getting much out of them, out of a misguided sense of obligation, or hankering after a ‘moment of connection’ long gone? But that is another topic…
