MAKING CHOICES: Good or Bad the Choice is Ours

It is difficult to teach people how to decide what they want as everybody has different peculiar needs. Things used to be so much easier; deciding on what to do was much simpler because there were not so much alternatives. But now it is different: so many brands, so many stores, magazines, TV stations, Food Items, dishes, Life Styles, Religion, Holiday Resorts, Fashion etc. we are bombarded with having to choose, choose, choose and choose from the time we wake up till the time we go to bed.

My choice is what I choose. Decision and choice are both used interchangeably but not quite same. Decision is an act of selecting between two or more possibilities. Choice is a product of decision making; every decision ever taken produces a choice. Decision is concluding after considering several alternatives. It is a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration.

You want to eat fruit and you settle for oranges, that is a choice; considering that orange is not the only fruit in the world and knowing that other fruits might have come to mind while trying to pick which you would prefer at that time, and sticking to oranges, makes that your decision. You considered alternatives.

Some people are overwhelmed just trying to pick between just two alternatives while other would not be comfortable until they have as many available alternatives as they can get. But when we have to make decisions whether big or small, we try to make the best choices.

We determine what we want to achieve, consider the value of achieving it and weigh the options and choose which one will suit us best. Whether a choice is good or bad solely depends on the individual, but there are factors that determine his decision. This would include environment, religion, culture, traditions, peer pressure, the situation that led to the decision, information, etc.

Good information leads to good choices, bad information on the other hand leads to wrong or bad choices. So before you compare alternatives, you must also decide where your information is coming from. A wrong choice of information will lead to a bad choice of alternatives which will in turn give you a bad choice when you finally decide. In same way good information generates good choices.

A good choice can generate other good alternatives for you to make other choices. For example, a teenager saves his allowances to get himself a computer for the purpose of gaming. At that time, gaming is all he thinks about, but there is more that can be achieved. When he buys the computer, he find he can go on net and research, from research he has materials to do his homework. He finds he can do other things like networking, graphics, etc. there is a multiple effect from his choice of getting that computer.

Good or bad, there is one thing we all need to know ultimately and consider deeply: how your choice would affect those around. “People often have a weakness for the immediate gratification of a pleasant experience, even if it makes for a very poor decision. Gratification over the long term simply doesn't deliver the same instant, feel-good endorphin hit”. You can disregard every other person and do what you think is right, but how right is your right? How responsible are you with your decision?  

Choices over time become habits. Habits give an impression of who we are. We can decide to leave things to chance and just go for it; we can also consider setting priorities. The choice is always ours.