Choice.

April 29th, 2008 Posted in Thoughts

Choice.

The devil that is choice. I’m not talking about the simpler choices in life like whether to buy the blue or green car, but the choice of what you spend your time on throughout life.

For many people, it seems they are just given an illusion of choice. America is famous for this as we are told at an early age that we are a free country where each individual gets freedoms to do what they please.

The question is, are people as free as they think?

The single factor I want to focus on revolves around insecurity. People are always worried about what society, strangers, acquaintances, friends, and family think of them.

This places the person in a stressful state. Everyone has an opinion of how you should live your life, and they often feel they need to impose this opinion on you.

However, it forces you into a corner, but it’s sometimes hard to see that. Insecurities are imposed by your environment all the time. Brilliant marketers create magnificent advertisements that show beautiful people doing beautiful things.

This message gets ingrained in us as we start to compare ourselves to these ideals. The advertisement itself doesn’t seal the deal. It is when we start looking around to others to see if they are thinking the same thing.

Since everyone is being influenced to a certain degree, you will pick up the signs that others also believe the same so it becomes deeply accepted by your mind.

Now take this one instance and multiply by a million and welcome to your world.

What choice is left? Not much, but I guess you get to pick the color of the car you like.

So something happens and you somehow get rid of your insecurities and realize that the people you looked to to confirm your beliefs weren’t so sure either despite acting the part.

All you need to find is one instance where what you belief clashes greatly with reality. For some people, that is depression and for others it is an eye opening experience.

After your first experience of a new reality, you start to wonder if more of the things you know are wrong.

You hunt and hunt and hunt for the truth. You question all your beliefs to the point where you aren’t sure about anything.

You start trying different ways to live. You adopt new beliefs. You start to associate yourself with different people.

You may find a few more things that you had completely wrong, but then you also quickly realize that there are a lot of questions out there without a certain answer.

There may not be that right way to spend your life.

Choice.