The Paradox of Choice: beneficial or detrimental?

         One of my facebook friends recently posted an inspiring article on her wall called Why Some People Change Their Lives But Others Stay Stuck. The premise of the article is that some people stay stuck in lives they're unhappy with while others make wholesale changes to try and find a more desirable trajectory. The article also had a lot of parallels to the book the Paradox of Choice: Why More if Less, which I recently read.

        To summarize what I learned from these two sources, the upside of having so many choices is that we live in a time and place chalk full of opportunities to build the foundation of the life that can be closely in line with our dreams. You can basically live anywhere you want, trudge down whatever career path appeals to you, choose who to date and/or marry even from afar (or stay single), and live a life according to your priorities. The world is literally our campus to enjoy and the ideas and expertise of the world carried around in our pockets.

         Sounds amazing, right? With all this power and influence to impact our destinies at our fingertips, why is depression at an all-time high and why are people unhappy? It should be the opposite based on the freedoms and choices we have today.
        The answer to the above question is complicated. First, our expectations have been raised to unreasonable levels. Second, we are all human. Many people simply botch their major life choices. The botched choices could either be a result of picking a poor alternative that wasn't well thought out or not knowing what they want. Finally, analyzing a myriad of options can be an overwhelming process to reach a decision.        

         In particular, many twenty somethings end up at a crossroads suffering from a quarter-life crisis not knowing what to do to transition from adolescence to adulthood. A common scenario is they graduate college with an unmarketable degree and then move back in with their parents not knowing what to do next or work at an entry level job until another opportunity presents itself. This indecisive approach leads nowhere slowly and essentially squanders a lot of potentially robust skill development and resume building years.

        Of course, the alternative to doing nothing is to just pick a path with an imperfect filtering down process. However, it's hard to reap the benefits of hard work, dedication, and perseverance if your heart was never into the path in the first place. What compounds the issue is that with so many options on the table, there is no way to really compare and contrast all of them without an exhaustive effort. Although we live in an information age where there is almost an unlimited amount of information about nearly any specific path, we need to have a methodology for narrowing down what interests you. Is it money, prestige, quality of life, subject matter or some other factor that motivates you? Honing in on what you want out of your career can narrow things down in a hurry.

       Unfortunately, there will always be doubt about whether the choice you made was indeed the best one for you. You only have one life to live, so you can only start down the path you choose and hope for the best. At some point, if you find yourself burned out or unhappy you can always make adjustments and take some bigger risks to find a new trajectory.

        Even education and experience not directly related to your prime career earning years will eventually help in other aspects of life and can be built on for future career opportunities. In other words, you don't have to find a perfect fit necessarily in your 20s and 30s. The puzzle pieces will come together in due course as long as you are building new skills and exerting effort into learning new things. God truly doesn't care what profession we choose for ourselves in most cases, so there's no reason to place a heavy burden in trying to find a perfect job.

        Psychologically speaking, knowing that there are other options we left on the table we'll never know what "could have" been. We might kick ourselves for choosing a less appealing alternative or we may abort a perfectly good option midway in our career in the hopes that the grass is greener elsewhere. The dirty little secret about choices is that there is a never a perfect option. There are always flaws and tradeoffs no matter what career or path we choose.  

         Some people see taking ownership of their life trajectories as a burden, but I see it as a huge opportunity! It is up to you and nobody else how your life evolves, which can be a huge boon if you are methodical and ambitious about your decision making. Even though we can't blame anyone else for our failures, the career path we entered, the location or house we live in, or even the person we choose as a significant other (or the choice to be alone), I'd rather have that than be conscripted into subpar circumstances. All of the important stuff we have the power to choose from a vast array of options, which should be a good thing if you value freedom.

        There are some decisions we make that having too many choices can hinder our happiness sticking with what we have already decided on. In marriage, we should be committed to our spouse and realize that some choices are permanent except in extenuating circumstances (abuse, infidelity, etc.). Even if more appealing options come along, we need to understand the value of being with the same person and the inherent value of sharing a long personal history together. I've never been married, but it's always bothered me that some people look around at other options besides their spouse because they can in a discrete way. 

        Choices don't have to be major life decisions. It could be which priorities we focus on and the sum total of all of our daily decisions. By way of example, we can spend some of our free time watching tv or wander into the gym for a workout. We'll eventually reap the benefits or detriments of the habits that we choose to emphasize.

        If you are unhappy with your choices, then find a catalyst for change like the woman in the article I mentioned in the first paragraph. We don't need a traumatic event like hers to make major changes in our lives. We just need to wake up feeling resolved that making a u-turn or tweaking our circumstances will lead to happier days ahead. We have more control than we think and we often underestimate our abilities, but we'll never know unless we pick a path and be fully invested by sprinting down it.