Are We Overwhelmed by Too Many Choices?

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Margaret Mead warned 75 years ago in her anthropological classic Coming of Age in Samoa that “a society which is clamoring for choice, which is filled with many articulate groups, each urging its own brand of salvation, its own variety of economic philosophy, will give each new generation no peace until all have chosen or gone under, unable to bear the condition of choice. The stress is in our civilization.”

Think how common it is to feel lost these days, wondering if you’re making the right purchases, living in the right place, hanging out with the right people, and doing the right work. You can see further signs of confusion in the news every day. Most of the discussion about issues like the economy, environmental protection, social justice, and homeland security end up as questions about choice: How do we expand our options? When do we set limits? Who has been left out of the decision making? These questions, of course, play a pivotal role in international affairs, setting our policies in Iraq, North Korea, Palestine, and Israel, among other places.

Whether we’re aware of it or not, these large concerns are likely affecting our personal abilities to make simple choices. If you find that you are frequently changing your mind these days, or endlessly postponing making decisions in order to seek more information, it may help to remember that such anxiety may come from cultural, rather than our personal, bewilderment over the role of choice in our lives.

Or it may be because of fear.

With September 11, a steep economic downturn, bioterrorism threats, a steady stream of government security warnings, the possibility of successive wars, and growing international hatred for the United States, the new century has ushered in an Age of Fear, observes Phillip Moffitt in Yoga Journal (March/April 2003).

“Living in a fear-based culture inevitably affects your state of mind and the decisions you make,” Moffitt writes. “As a citizen you may become more compliant, more willing to surrender your rights for vague promises of safety. As an employee you are less demanding, less willing to take risks. And in your personal life you are more security oriented, and thus less open to new possibilities.” When not acknowledged, he continues, “fear narrows your vision, shuts down intuition as well as common-sense reflection, and promotes violent actions.” To help us sort out the reasons behind our choices, Moffitt calls on us to recognize fear as “a phenomenon that is predominant in this particular moment, not the ultimate decision maker in your life.”

We live in complicated times, where it’s hard to tell whether our anxiety comes from inside or out. It’s difficult to make clear, meaningful decisions when the world is in a state of huge flux. Fundamentalism—Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Hindu—and its accompanying codes of strict behavior and enforced decision making, is one response to such ever-changing conditions. But psychologist Robert Jay Lifton has been saying for years that there’s another, opposite, reaction that is underway all around us.

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