As consumers, it is not just about small cars, but about every single thing that governs our lives where we make choices. Be it our mobile phones, our day to day FMCG products, white goods, the idiot box with its innumerable channels, our retail products and even the basic food that we eat; there is a plethora of choices everywhere.
Of course, some choices that we make are more important than others, choices that shape one’s destiny; career choices for instance.
While I was growing up, at different points in time I wanted to become a different person. At times I thought I would make a great Bollywood actress, at others I thought it would be super cool to become a CID Detective! There were other times when I imagined myself as a school teacher, and at other instances I was a scientist winning a Nobel Prize. Ultimately, I guess I was destined to be an Equity Research Analyst (Sigh, so much for my dream of fighting crime and solving mysteries).
On the other hand, some choices can be relatively insignificant, and yet can tax the mind to no end. For e.g. the decision I had to make on my derivatives position. The payoffs were like this – a) Exit and make immediate profits of Rs. 600 b) Wait and bear the risk of unlimited losses or another opportunity to make bigger profits.
During my first tryst with derivatives, I opted for (b) and ended up making colossal losses. Fortunately (or no?) this time I went for choice (a) and settled for lower profits, but got rid of the unwanted stress of the huge uncertainty that lay ahead.
Now isn’t it supposed to be a good thing to have so many choices? Or is it like the situation of Buridan’s ass? (A hypothetical situation wherein an ass is placed precisely midway between a stack of hay and a pail of water. The assumption is that the ass will always go to whichever is closer, but ultimately it will die of both hunger and thirst since it cannot make any rational decision to choose one over the other.)
There have been several occasions where I have faced a similar situation (not that I am comparing myself to Buridan’s ass, but the analogy holds nevertheless) wherein I was unable to make a choice and ultimately ended up leaving the decision incomplete. For e.g. my plan to purchase a house – of course for such a big ticket purchase a random number generator will not be apt. Nevertheless, I could not decide upon the budget, the locality, and worse still not even the city; and therefore cancelled the idea of a purchase altogether.
I think we as humans are so spoilt for choices that we fail to appreciate the finer things in life. I also think that too many choices in life lead to excessive hubris, greed, envy, and a lack of focus and confidence.
And there is always this constant stress of ‘what if I had made the other choice, would things have been better?’
But quite often I have wondered “What if?” What if we could actually live an entire life for each of the choices we make in our lives? That would be like living a million lives within a single lifetime. Each of the million lives can be lived in a fast forward motion within the original lifetime. Finally, we can take a combination of the best choices that results in the best kind of life, and ultimately live that life alone in our original allotted timeframe of life.
This will surely make a good movie script, a la Chris Nolan types right? But oh well, that’s another story altogether.
Juggling my thoughts... 