Being able to choose is a
good thing right? We can decide what to eat for breakfast. We can decide what
to wear, where to go for party, we can even choose what colour shoe laces we
will have. How can that be bad? Well actually there are some ways.
Have you ever bought
something and after that regretted you didn’t make another choice? I have, and then
we start to blame ourselves. Because we made the choice, we choose the option
that doesn’t seem so good anymore. The
problem is that we have too many options. After we made a decision we can see
that only If I had gone to another shop I could have got it cheaper or a better
model for the same price, or there would be something outstanding coming out
only a couple of days after I made that purchase. Things change fast.
And when we make the
purchase we automatically start to find faults in our choice and the good
things in our alternative choices. And by doing that we make ourselves feel bad.
We start to think that we should ask for some advice to other people next time.
So later we ask for advice to our friends, and they give it to us. But does
that change the result? Yes! We will still be finding faults in our decisions
and wishing we had made another choice but now at leats we have two people to
blame. Our friend who made a shitty suggestion and ourselves who listened to
him. So now again we don’t trust to our own ideas, and to his or hers as well.
Can there be a way to escape
this loop? I don’t know. I guess we are just programmed to make doubts about
all our decisions. Maybe that’s way great leaders sometimes are told to be a
little bit nuts or crazy. Because they don’t doubt about their ideas (at least
in public) and that feels unnatural to rest of you. Most people don’t like to
take the lead, because are afraid of failing, making the wrong choice.
So, how to end this
nonsense? Start to find good things instead of bad things around you. Will it
help? Of course not! We can’t possibly get information about all the available
possibilities, and we can’t properly evaluate what would be the best because
what would be best at the moment may not be the best option if you look into
the future. Things change, and you can do nothing about it. Now as I see it we
have two options. To think about the past and blame what we did, or to think
what could we do in the future. After all, it’s your choice.
