Making Choices

You make choices every  day, many times each day. So do I. We all do. It is how we live life. Always have. Step by step, moment by moment, options taken, options ignored.

Tens of thousands of years ago options were few: escape the wild animal or die; kill the animal or starve; skin the dead animal and be clothed; huddle together for overnight warmth or freeze to death; build a tent for shelter or find a cave for a home.

Modern society provides more choices. What kind of food, when to eat it, in what fashion to eat it, and where to dine. Same with clothing: style, design, function, color, texture. Options to pursue. Where to go is an option, and in what mode of transportation will we ride?

We make so many choices we are unaware of them. Automatic responses and reactions, almost autonomic. Modern times, modern options.

The older we become the fewer options are needed. We are satisfied to remain seated for long periods of time; we are able to move about well enough to maintain function and usefulness. But choices? Now it is about what to read, what TV program to watch, when to arise in the morning and when to retire for the night. During the day we have an option (or two!) for a nap.

When young we had a myriad of choices to manage. What school to go to. What program of study to pursue. Which interest do I have that may give me a life-long pursuit? Even a career? How do I find the job that makes use of my education, experience and interests? How do I go about this? And preparation? For how long, and in what manner?

So many questions. So many options. It is bewildering. When a very young child I wanted to be a fireman, or a policeman. They were doers and heroes. That’s why they were interesting and they caught my attention. Later I did not wish to follow those careers. Other things came to mind that interested me. To be truthful, other things came to fascinate me. I thought about them a lot and even had dreams about them. I remember such things; do you?

Today the music is everywhere, so too the news and advertising and constant commotion of modern day living. Noise. I am struck by the amount of noise we surmount each day. That alone creates distraction, information and options. Just to survive all of that, we choose the ways and means to live.

Later again, much later, we are asked to discern what is more important than another thing, and then make decisions based on that decision. This is how we choose careers or educational paths. And yes, it is how we choose to spend our time.

Autonomic maybe; with some thought probably; with much pondering and considered analysis, not likely.

And that’s the problem. Research is now suggesting that many people find options too numerous to process. Instead of finding freedom in this circumstance they, instead, find it onerous work and too uncomfortable for their minds. They ignore the choices. They let them slip by. They let chance choose for them.

And then, one day a friend with drugs offers insight and escape through chemistry. Curious they answer the invitation. The result is even more curious. They explore it some more and in a few days and weeks they have found an outlet for their minds with very little pondering and analysis required.

Months or years later they are caught in a web of duty to chemicals; they cannot escape. Others near them realize something is amiss and try to help. Rebuffed they shun the person and move on with their own lives. Our subject, however, is still rooted in what is now addiction.

He or she finds light one day when they awake in an emergency room with nurses and doctors rushing around in chaotic noise and activity. Slowly they become aware of their surroundings and make some sense of it; not totally but some. Later it is explained to them that they were found unresponsive with heavy doses of drugs in their system. On the final lap of a death cycle, EMTs were summoned and a life was saved. His.

Months later this individual is processed through varying levels of rehabilitation and counseling in an attempt to bring him back to the world of the living and willing. The choice to be counted as willing has not yet been attained. He is still pondering choices for which he has no training or experience.

This is modern life. This partially explains the drug culture and opioid and heroin crisis we are facing as a nation.

Too much freedom? Too much choice? Have we overloaded our kids to that extent? Or have we allowed them too much freedom. How do we respond to this crisis. Can we? Do it justice?

Heavy question but one we need to ask; and answer.

September 13, 2017