People usually like to have more choices, but are they really good for us?
From what I heard from a few relatives and professors in my parents’ generation, it seems that their lives are pretty straightforward: study hard, get a good job, and work hard to support family. Although they may have personal interests and hobbies, but those are luxury and usually don’t come into consideration in their career choice or overall life plan.
As countries get richer, most people have more time and choices available. With more options, life also becomes more complicated. Now we’ve to think about what we want to do with our time, what careers to pursue, and what kind of life we’re mean to live. More choices thus mean more responsibility on our part.
Maybe life would really be simpler if we’ve limited choices. We would still have to work hard in those situations, but at least we don’t have to worry about the big question such as what to do with our life. But given a choice, I’d still preferred to have more options rather than less, it may mean more headaches, but it probably make life more interesting and fulfilling especially if I were able to discover and live the kind of life I want.
Here’s an interesting side story related to the topic but deals more with freedom than choice.
Often, when people are forced to follow a certain path, maybe due to financial hardship or family’s decisions, they usually become better at what they do because of the narrow focus. An interesting example came from a recent discussion with a friend on a Business Week’s article on Yao Ming, the Chinese basketball star playing at NBA. It’s written that Yao Ming’s parents were both professional basketball players, and they encouraged and trained them to play basketball since he was young. My friend said Yao Ming’s mom makes all decisions for him since he was young: what to eat, how much to practice, what not to do, and even what girlfriend to make–she’s a professional basketball player, which is not a surprise (things about her mom are not mentioned in the article though). It seems that he’s designed to become a basketball player from the start. I don’t know whether he enjoys his ‘designed life’, but does it matter, people usually enjoy what they do when they become very good at it. So again it seems that limited freedom may make life ‘easier’ and even ‘more efficient’.
Ryu's Blog 