Choice

Choice


In life we are often put in situation which requires us to make choices. The choices I make can often be good or bad. Regardless of whether the choice is good I must deal with the outcome.One of the hardest choices I have made in my life has been whether or not to continue school. It took me a long time to decide what I wanted to do. After a lot of thinking and analyzing the outcomes of each choice I decided to remain in school. This has been one of the best decisions I have made.

In the poem The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost the main character of the poem is on a journey. On his journey he reaches a point where there are two roads and he must choose which one to travel. The traveler thinks very carefully before making his decision upon which road to travel. He notices that one of the roads looks as though it has been travel by many people in the past. He finally decides to pick a road and he picks the one that looks as if it was less traveled. The poem to me has a bigger message then just a wanderer that travels a road, to me the big message of the story is to not follow in the paths of others. That when making choices don't just choose something based upon what others are doing if not to think carefully because the choice less picked might be the right one for you.

In the short story "Dead End" by Adolfo Anaya the main character Maria has to make a very important choice in her life that could change her future. Maria has to make the choice of smoking weed with the boy which she has a crush on just to fit in or pass and focus on her school work. She made a promise to her mother that she would not give up on her education. The story takes place in El Barrio. Most of the girls from El Barrio do not care about their education and use drugs just to fit in with the popular kids. Maria's choice is influenced by the Hispanic legend of La Llorona. La llorona is a Hispanic story about a young lady who had kids with a man. Everything was fine with the couple at first but over time he began to not care for her. She was mad and killed her kids in the river. It is said that she comes out at night crying. La llorona influenced the choice that Maria made because Maria didn't want to end up like La Llorona and end up making a mistake that could jeopardize her future.

In the essay The Tyranny of Choice by Barry Schwartz, the author makes a connection about how choices can affect our happiness. He uses two special words to describe how it is that people make choices. One of the words is Maximizer, A maximizer is a person who always aims to make the best possible choice. The second word is satisficers. A satisficers is a person who makes choices that are just good enough. Even though it is impossible to evaluate every choice before making a decision a maximizer is one that will evaluate as many of the choices as possible before making their decision. The connection that was made stated that maximizer are less satisfied by the choice they make then satisficers are. I believe that I am a satisficers. The reason why I think I am a satisficers is because I rarely go to the extent of evaluating every option in order to make my decision. I am satisfied by the choice which I find to be good enough. Now regret is a totally different thing. Regret in our choices can lead into low sensitivity and depression. Why? Because we can often regret the choice that we made and it can lead us into becoming a maximizer. How can it lead you into becoming a maximizer? Because the next time you have to make a choice you will evaluate every option before deciding so you wont be dissatisfied again. Also when we begin to adapt to something we after a while we begin to regret the decision we made. I believe that we do have high expectations from the choices we make because when we make decision we think its the best possible choice. With us thinking this we get our hopes up and that's not always the case and its not as good as expected.

In this cartoon we can see the obvious that the dog is having trouble making a choice. The dog is having difficulties deciding on whether to use the bathroom on the tree or on the fire hydrant. Dogs like to use the bathroom on trees and on fire hydrants that's where the humor of the picture is.

The choices we make in our everyday life can have a huge impact on us based on the outcome. Choice can lead to depression How can choice lead us to depression because we can begin to regret the choice that we make or we can also have our expectations to high and then the outcome is not what we expected. We make choice every single day and with the enormousness amount of options that we have now it can be a difficult thing.


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©Johnny Olivo 2011