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Was laying in bed thinking, as I do every morning before I actually get out of bed.

I was thinking about choices and how they relate to happiness.

I think maybe the amount of choices one has in life does affect the level of happiness a person may experience. Would Baskin Robbins really be that big a deal if they only offered 3 flavours? Would a college be as successful only offering 1 course? Would we be content to wear the same clothes every day? I think to a limit the more choices one has in their life the better quality the life is. Up to a point of course. Because when you have to many choices you can get weighed down by them or even confused.

I also think choices are something that one either makes for themselves or they pass them on to others. Sometimes the passing is maybe like tug of war where the knot passes from one side to the other and then back to the other. Sorta see-saw like.

I think the reason choices make people happy is that it gives them control over the situation. You get to decide on the matter. You get to have it your way or the way you want it. Or in some rare instances you chose something the way another person wants it. Sorta like a car of people in which the driver eats where the pasengers wish instead of where he wants to himself. Which is perhaps not that persons decision at all but the giving of that control to another for a moment sorta on loan.

Conversely though, no choices means you have to make do with what you are provided. You don’t get to decide as the matter is closed. You may not get it the way you want it. You have no control over how things unfold.

I think when a choice is immutable, when you can’t do anything yourself to change it. Then its not a choice or a decision. Its a judgement or a law. I can chose to disregard gravity…but its judgement on how its going to behave on me is not going to vanish. Reminds me of my parents and their decisions (which are the outcome of a choice). My parents would “lay the law down” to us kids. Meaning here it is like it or lump it.
I don’t think I ever liked it.

Some choices are so trivial that the outcome of them are just not going to cause a stir. I mean in general will I get upset that the cashier gave me 2 $20’s and a $10 for change for a $50 or am I really going to get demanding and want some $5’s and $1’s and some coins. It probably don’t matter overly much.

Some decisions though I think do carry weight. I walked down my grandmothers one morning, it was a very very cold morning, in the single digit temperatures that night (Farenheit not Celsius). And I walked by my uncles van and what did I happen to see a sleepy headed uncle lol. Apparently his wife had decided that he required some “social adjustments” and told him to sleep out in the cold. Such decisions like that are not so easy to live with. When the decision is not up to you. And when it affects you quite strongly (and negatively) in your life.

Choices come in 3 main types I think. Those you get to make. Those someone else gets to make. Those you make together with others.

Two of those type of choices are easier to handle than one.

I can easily make decisions for myself. I can also handle making decisions as a part of a group or couple. But I have a hard time taking decisions handed down to me. But thats life in a nutshell. Not everything is our choice. We don’t always have the choices available to us that we want.

At christmas for example. I rather someone give me the money to buy something for myself than come home with 3 pair of plaid socks. Not that I don’t appreciate the gesture. Because I do. Very few people can make a choice involving you thats of the same “quality” as you would make for yourself.

Oh well. I can get off my soapbox now.

That and I gotta study for a test.

I love you babygirl.