Psychology of choices. Choice(noun): an act of choosing…
By: Kamal Bisht
Tags: Self Improvement, Human Development, Life Lessons, Life Hacking, Choices

What exactly is a choice?

Choice(noun): an act of choosing between two or more possibilities.

For some, choices can be just a way of defining and asserting their individuality, but it is definitely much more than that and it plays a transforming role in every individual’s life.

Let’s understand the underlying assumptions about why we should know about making choices and why we shouldn’t judge others choices

First assumption: If a choice affects you, then you should be the one to make it.

If a choice affects you, then you should be the one to make it. This is the only way to ensure that your preferences and interests will be most fully accounted for. People must choose for themselves, regardless of what other people want or recommend. It’s called “being true to yourself.” For a few people, the choice is a mechanism or way to create community and harmony by deferring to the choices of people whom they trusted and respected. For them the concept of being true to one’s self, then that self, most likely, [was] composed, not of an individual, but of a collective. Or we can say an individual’s preferences were shaped by the preferences of specific others. The assumption then that we do best when the individual self chooses only holds when that self is clearly divided from others. So don’t judge others. Many people don’t thrive under the pressure of choosing alone. For e.g. when two or more individuals see their choices and their outcomes as intimately connected, then they may amplify one another’s success by turning choosing into a collective act. To insist that they choose independently might actually compromise both their performance and their relationships.

Second assumption- The more choices you have, the more likely you are to make the best choice

The older generation had jumped from nothing to choice all around them. They were never given a chance to learn how to react.

In today’s time, many choices are between things that are not that much different.

The value of choice depends on our ability to perceive differences between the available options.

In fact, though all humans share a basic need and desire for choice, we don’t all see the choice in the same places or to the same extent.

When someone can’t see how one choice is unlike another, or when there are too many choices to compare and contrast, the process of choosing can be confusing and frustrating. Instead of making better choices, we become overwhelmed by choice, sometimes even afraid of it.

Choice no longer offers opportunities but imposes constraints. It’s not a marker of liberation, but of suffocation by meaningless minutiae.

In simple words, a choice can develop into the very opposite of everything it represents when it is thrust upon those who are insufficiently prepared for it.

We all have physical, mental and emotional limitations that make it impossible for us to process every single choice we encounter.

The value of choice depends on our ability to perceive differences between the available options.

When people are given more options when they’re making a choice, they make poorer decisions.

Yet still, many of us believe that we should make all our own choices and seek out even more of them.

The third assumption: Narrative of We must never say no to choice.

This narrative promises so much: freedom, happiness, success but its not always true.

We should know that no single narrative serves the needs of everyone everywhere. So we should have a wider imagination and perspective as we will benefit from incorporating new perspectives into our own narrative which has been driving our choices for so long.

When it comes to choice, we have far more to gain than to lose by engaging in the many translations of the narratives.

Instead of replacing one story with another, we can learn from and revel in the many versions that exist and the many that have yet to be written. No matter where we’re from and what our narrative is, we all have a responsibility to open ourselves up to a wider array of what choice can do, and what it can represent.

Our choices should teach us when and how to act. It teaches us when and how to act.

The narrative should bring us closer to realizing the full potential of choice, to inspire the hope of achieving freedom that choice promises but doesn’t always deliver.

If we learn to widen our narrative, we can allow our minds to see the choice in all its strangeness, complexity and compelling beauty.

Using all this we can grow in a magnificent way without judging others.