Choice Is Your Choice How would you feel if you went to the store and you were told what to buy? What if you were told what to do? What if you had no choice in where to go or what to wear? How would you feel if these choices were limited to just two or three choices to choose from? In this day and age, the variety of choice has grown to almost limitless. This abundance of choice gives people the opportunity to be different. Individuality would mean nothing if we all wore the same clothes, ate the same food, and most of all had no choice in who we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with.Barry Schwartz wrote “When It’s All Too Much”, an article about the overabundance of choice, in 2004. In this article Schwartz explains how the increase in choice is pertinent in the aspect of society’s happiness or lack thereof.
Schwartz states, “In the past 30 years – a great time of prosperity – the proportion of the population describing itself as ‘very happy’ has declined. The decline was about 5 %”( Schwartz 173). That 5% would calculate to be about 14 million Americans. A lot has happened in the past 30 years that has more to do with the happiness of not only Americans, but civilization on a global standpoint.With the passing of time there are more choices to make and more responsibility involved with these choices.
For some people it is hard to deal with the responsibility of having to make difficult choices. Health care is one many people have a problem with and is one of Schwartz’s examples of hard to make choices as he states “people in one study were asked whether, if they got cancer, they would want to be in charge of their treatment decisions…People with cancer have experienced the awesome psychological consequence of being responsible for a life-and-death decision, and they don’t want that decision. (Schwartz 173). This is a great point by Schwartz.
I don’t think anyone could deal with making life or death decisions, I know it would be hard for me to do in this kind of situation. How would you feel if you were asked to make the decision whether to pull the plug on a family member? These are some extremely tough decisions that someone somewhere. In these cases you are given options but not many and all are meant to help. When it comes down to it, in health care, there are a lot f choices to make but I am sure that all of them are in your best interest and should be made to save your life. Now who is to say that the increase in choice, better yet, the increase in the variety of the choice a person has would have any significant contribution to the happiness or unhappiness of the human race as a whole? It is a well-known fact that everyone is different and in that aspect everyone has different preferences, tastes, and styles as well. Choice or the abundance of choice is not a significant cause of unhappiness in the world.
This unhappiness with choice comes into play when people have to deal with the choices they have made. Schwartz’s article only addresses a small group of people that are indecisive. What about the people like me that like to have more choices to choose from? Should these people be penalized for the 5% of Americans that can’t handle making choices? He makes great points in the article in regards to choices being a factor in society’s happiness, but that is only for a small group of people not all people.There are people that take making choices to a greater extent than they should be taken. Schwartz calls these people “maximizers” (Schwartz 173); these are people that have to have the best of everything. Are these people considered to be the majority? Do they speak for all of humanity? These are the questions that stimulated my opposition on Schwartz’s article.
The world is growing at a rapid rate and the variety of choices people have has grown exponentially.Happiness has very little to do with the amount of choices there are to be made but the effect that these choices have on someone’s life, after it has been made, does. For example, you go to a used car lot to buy a car. There are many brands, types, and colors to choose from. The car you would choose will be according to your preference and your personal budget.
You then pick the car you want and you are happy with your choice because it is what you like and therefore what you want.Later you begin to have engine problems with the car you were happy to have purchased. Now you are unhappy with the choice you made. So was it the abundance of choice the reason you chose the car with the problems? It is safe to say that having an abundance of choice makes it easier to make the wrong choice, but it was your choice to make. Without an abundance of choice how would we know what choice is supposed to be the right one.
I have asked a lot of questions to prove the point that this issue is a very questionable and is open to many different interpretations.Yet it is still apparent that a variety of choice is not a cause of unhappiness. The choice that is made would have more to do with ones happiness than the amount of choices one has to choose from. On a personal note, I had a power outage in my home. I figured out that it was a blown fuse.
I went looking for a replacement, and when I got to the store I was unhappy with the lack choices I had to choose from. Without a variety of different brands and package quantities, I was forced to settle for what the store had in stock.The lack of choice is better seen in situations like bill you have to pay out of necessity: electricity, water, etc. Take your water bill for instance; you have to have water to accommodate everyday living, right? You have no choice how much the water company charges you per gallon, but to maintain comfortable living you have to pay whatever rate they give you to pay.
If there were more choices in where to purchase the water for your home people would be more inclined to choose the one that makes them happy, instead of being forced to pay the rate that is already set.So would you want more choice or no choice at all? I agree that sometimes it might take a lot of effort to make a choice, given that there are so many choices to choose from now then there were 30 years ago, but to gauge your happiness on the amount of choices you have to make is not a good scale. There is no stop in sight to the growing abundance in the variety of choices people have the option to choose from, so for the people that are indecisive there are still the small “mom and pop” type stores that sell a limit variety of products.The best advice I can give is “don’t stress about what toothpaste to buy and if it is too much try them all until you find the right one for you. ” There are choices to make each and every day, so if you get hung up on one you might be stuck in Food Lion pulling you hair out trying to figure out do you want corn on the cob, sweet corn, cream corn, fresh cut corn, frozen corn, Del’Monte, Dole, Green Giant, or even store brand.
So the next time you are faced with a decision to make and you think there are too many choices to choose from think about the people that have to choose between life and death, and ask yourself should I really be stressing over what kind of jeans to buy. Works Cited Schwartz, Barry. “When It’s All Too Much. ” Perspectives on Arguments.
Nancy Woods. Boston: Pearson, 2012 172-73. Print.
