“When people have no choice, life is almost unbearable. As the number of available choices increases, as it has in our consumer culture, the autonomy, control, and liberation this variety brings are powerful and positive. But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.” — Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice

In general, I feel that choice is not what we think, or feel.

Choice happens.

It’s clear that we are choosing, the question I raise, is how much is the choosing already chosen, like in the absence of free will, we see free will, we also see choice.

Yet, the ideas in The Feeling of What Happens, by Damasio, call us to the notion that our stimuli are already filtered before they get to our system of rational cognition, and Khaneman won a Nobel Prize for showing that most of our decision-making is irrational… So how much choice do we really think we have?

Or rather, how does choice manifest itself in our lives?

People, in general, do not like to think or feel they are not in control. For instance, to the extent that you feel in control, you feel ok, whatever being in control is for you. (I suggest it’s different for most people.)

Schwartz says, "Choice is what enables us to tell the world who we are and what we care about."

And I agree with that.  But what BS tries to overtly influence us to understand, even though it is covert in its notions of influence, choosing in most cases to appeal to our unconscious motivators, rather than what reason we do have consciously, that we are in fact, the choice masters; that we are the ones making the choices, even though most likely we are merely participating, rather than rationally choosing.

I do believe this particular notion of choice is the most difficult, along with free will to swallow in FLOW… Yet, until we get to this point, we won’t stop falling victim to those influences that actually benefit from our ignorance.

Things that will make you go "hmmmmmmmmmmm" for sure.

Helpful Hint: I believe that once we get to the point that we realize that most of the time, choices are chosen for us, that we begin to be a bit more humble, which if only this is true, is good for us, as the ego position we take in humility is a lot different than the one emerging in arrogance. The other super duper key here is this… IF we can realize that most of our choices are already being decided upstream, then we can begin to take a look at the process that choses us, which can help us become more conscious that BS has us entrained into consumption because it does fit with liberation and freedom, and yet as a result, the more we choose, the more we are chosen. Having choices and choosing are two different things, in my view.

Action Step: It’s just going to take time to work this TPOV, because it flies in the face of everything we have been taught to value. We like to think we are the chosers rather than the chosen — I suspect — and it’s just difficult to realize there is such great benefit in going upstream to look at the 5Ws in the process. Noticing is big here, the activity in choosing, especially for those of us who are active experimenters in the Kolb Learning Model, is actually improbable, if not impossible most times, and this leaves us a victim of our upstream programming, as we are anyway, if you catch the meaning here. However, if we can visit this process of choice-making and view it with some objectivity, we are more than likely going to be able for a moment, if not a lifetime, step out of the rat race.