ChOice

Source: http://thedecisioninstitute.com/tag/decision/

There are economic and scientific theories about how we make our choices, why we make them, and how our choices reflect on to our behaviours. But here, I am not going to go that deep into the topic.

In my head choice is a beauty facet of freedom. The freedom to choose anything and everything. Backed by our conservative / semi-conservative upbringing and sticking to our nature of taking cautious moves, we restrict or rather perceive restrictions whilst deciding what to choose. We confine ourselves within self invented boundaries that no one is stopping ourselves to cross, except us. Or rather, we confine ourselves with that conscious / non-conscious fear of the beyond, the unknown.

Take for instance our choice of career. How many of us choose to do want we want to do and not compromise with the obvious alternative? It is most likely that the percentage will be lesser than half of all. Why? Well, one reason is that parents and teachers push us towards campus placements and other conventional ways of job search where the choice of jobs are limited. For them, in their generation, going by the social norm have had positive social proofs that, they see a level of job security & surety of regular income. But if we try to stray away from the usual path where some period of unemployment is inevitable, it is neither welcomed not encouraged without a fight. May be this is because, job surety and security in this pathway is precarious, and has an added concern due to the uncertainty over its longevity.

We can't blame them for their reasoning. But that doesn't mean we have to compromise with that reasoning. Of course, if we choose to opt for the unconventional way, in pursuit of wanting to work where we want to instead of where we/what we get, some amount of persuasion and convincing of our elders is required from our side. But that an inevitable hurdle that we will have to overcome. We shouldn't let that be our pursuit stopper.

But why should we choose the hard way, just because we wish it?
Well...because, our profession grooms the individual we are to be, in the future. It is like education. Let us compare an engineer and a designer. Through their years of education, their brains are trained to think in a certain way: engineers -> more technical & formal; designers -> more creative, random and sometime chaotic. That is why there can be seen a stark difference in their perception of the same thing. As a result of their choice of higher education, their previously similar traits of thinking have now been differed through education. And hence, their identity has also been respectively, accordingly replaced.

Similarly, the choice of our job also further grooms our individuality. For, our work makes us think a certain way. This intentionally and purposefully trains our brains to perceive things in that way, which in turn internally changes the way we discern things outside of work as well, which in fact is the representation of our individuality. If we had chosen to do what we want to do, then we might like the individual we have become. If otherwise, we will be spending our days cribbing and disliking our own selves, more.

So all we got to do is to avail the freedom of choice. Choose what we want to be and choose what we want to represent. Be it profession, hobbies, education and what not. For, our choices make what we are and groom us to what we want to be.