Cos we can always decide whether to buy something or not.
Decide to continue working or plan to leave.
We can change our jobs if we are really unhappy.
But what if we had not choice?
Have you watched the "Last Samurai" starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe?
When males are born, they become warriors, samurai, archers.
Females tend to the farm and home.
And that's it. There's no debate. The main part of the show is showing the lives of these samurai, their dedication to their skill, honour and pride. Just a lifelong cultivation.
And they accept it. It is the way it is. It is their life.
Does this sound miserable? Maybe...
And yet, many of us have already experienced it.
All the guys here have gone through NS. We had no choice.
I doubt many of us enjoyed it. We didn't get to choose the posting of what we were trained it, etc. During those 2 years, our lives were not our own. It was given to the country.
And yet, how many of us were miserable?
We didn't really like it, yes, I admit that... but personally, I never really felt miserable on Sundays or Mondays. It took some getting used to. The first few months were painful. But I adapted.
And maybe, just maybe... choice cripples us.
The idea that there's something else better out there, that could be better than what I'm experiencing now, makes us think and wonder, what if?
But in NS, we made the best of a bad situation. We had no choice. We went in and did our 2 years and tried our best to live with it the best we could.
The thing I remember about NS, is that during those 2 years, my mind was free.
I had no mental stress. Simply, I didn't need to think about what next, what else could I be doing.
I just knew I needed to finish these 2 years. I didn't care what they asked me to do, I just did it to the best that I could. If can, can, else I've tried my best.
I didn't think... if I'm not happy, I can leave... well cos I can't.
So I just went along with it.
There's a sort of liberating experience when I didn't need to think about what else I could do.
(I'm not talking about slaves, that's a different matter. I'm looking closer to the scenarios in "the Last Samurai")
And now, I think... Does choice cripple us? Does it make us unhappy?
Cos we can choose to be unhappy. Whereas if we have no choice, we would just make the best of it.
You may think it would be impossible to be happy without choice.
But there has been research on this. If you are presented with 50 different cans of baked beans, you will feel more stressed than if you are presented with 2 different types of baked beans.
Cos choice confuses us. Cos we don't know what we are missing. So we think of other possibilities. We think, what if... or what if... did I miss something cos of this decision... Maybe I should have... if only I had chosen the other thing... etc. There's always doubt.
And yet, when we are presented with 2 cans of baked beans, we try both and decide which we like better and just keep buying it.
What would happen in a world where there was only 1 job? Not possible but just for discussion.
We are born and we know that to keep society going, everyone must do this task.
Would we be miserable? Would we know that we are miserable?
I don't think so. The mind works in strange ways. It always benchmarks.
If we have not felt sad, we can't feel happy. Cos it's relative.
We won't feel rich, if there are no poor. We won't feel poor if there are no richer.
We won't think we need a bigger TV if there is only 1 size TV.
A very simple clear example... we didn't have iPhone previously and no one complained. Everyone was happy with Nokia.
We didn't know what we didn't know.
Or as what Henry Ford said,
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Now, of course, there's very little we can do about this.
We live in a world of choices and the choices are glaring at us. And we always think we could be happier if we made a different decision. So it's pretty much unavoidable.
As usual, it's just a different perspective which I found interesting.
And I always think awareness is always important.
So maybe... just maybe... cos we have choices, we are more unhappy than we should be.
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