The Paradox of Choices

We spend half our lives complaining about how life does not give you choices. You do most of the things, you blame all your failures and unhappiness for the lack of choice. 'If only I had a choice' , 'But I had no choice' are the most common things that you will hear unhappy people say.

But what if you do have choices? Today, the urban youth has so many choices that one would not know what to do beyond a point. This becomes worse when you are good at a lot of things. It feels like a million bubbles popping in front of you. When you go near it, it just bursts on your face leaving little drops of salty water. It is like a crooked tree with dry branches popping out of your head. You want to be a doctor, a dancer, a corporate head, a good wife, a researcher and what not. Oh the torture of knowing that you are good at a lot of things!

The choices that one has makes them neurotic sometimes. If you fail, you are solely responsible for it, and you know it. You can no longer blame lack of choices for your incompetency. The fear of failure, coupled with the guilt for taking a path to doom when so many choices were available can drive you mad. It does not always help to be skilled and with lot of choices. The world gathers around the judgement table and points an ugly black finger at you for your mistakes. It laughs like a hyena and the laughter echoes in your head over and over again. It is like sitting on a rotating chair and watching a spinning wheel for hours together that you lose all sense of direction and you feel your eyes will fall down from your head from the spinning. It is almost like entering into a state of trance- a perpetual eternal trance when you can not stop the rotation of your chair or the spinning of the wheel that you see. This, is the state of a neurotic.

This is the paradox of choices- you want it but do not want the responsibility with it. You want the right number of choices- not too many to confuse you, not too less to make you feel imprisoned. But how would you know what number is the right one? When the world is filled with opportunities and choices, how to make a call? What if you are interested in a lot of things? Can you handle that much on your plate? Will you be able to sacrifice all that interests you and go only for one path? Or will you dabble in different things? This is a question that one can never answer...