Choices??

                OK, so last night in class we had an interesting discussion that made me think a little bit. To give a bit of background I am getting my Master's Degree in Mental Health Counseling, and I am now in the process of taking a vocational counseling course. We were talking about jobs, and how the job market has changed over the course of the past two centuries. One of my classmates brought up the fact that there are now more choices than ever before, as far as our vocation is concerned. Think about it. What are we all told as kids? "You can be whatever you want to be!" Whereas back at the beginning of 1900s, if you were a woman, your job was to get married. Pure and simple (and that job was made easy by the fact that your family usually would set you up with a guy in the community that you would eventually marry, so there really wasn't even choice in that!).. If you were a man your were expected to go in to the family business and stay there for most/all of your life. Our professor then posed an interesting question to us, "Do you think that's actually helping us or hindering us in our lives today? Is that much choice always a good thing?" Then, one of the most interesting things happened, and this is what gave me the idea for this entry, the guy that I was sitting next to turned to me and said, "HA! Too much choice? That must be why I'm still single!" (suggesting that he had so much choice there was no way he would EVER possibly think about committing to one single person. This is interesting also, considering the fact that our local news paper actually had an article about the latest trend in romance, poly-amory, which also got me thinking about this topic).
                    Today, we have so many choices, in every aspect of our lives. We go to restaurants and we like choices (I have seen some menus that were almost novel-like in length!). We go to a coffee shop and we like choices. I have had instances where I have been driving down the street and seen three gas stations on three of the four corners of the same intersection. We also like to have options when buying clothes, MP3 players, computers everything. I mean, Apple comes out with a new version of it's latest product about once a year! If kids have to wear a uniform to school (and thereby eliminating the object of choice from what one wears) they become INDIGNANT! I know that I did. We don't even like being told that we have to wear our seat belts (we don't have a choice in the matter). We know that law is there for our protection, yet we still  rebel. In fact, there are numerous laws that are there to protect  us from the stupid choices that we would otherwise make, laws against illegal drugs, drunk driving, etc. Sometimes too much choice can actually end up complicating our lives; even directly harming us, or those around us.
                            So, to wrap up this entry, I would like to pose a question to those of you out there in cyber-land. The same question that my professor asked. Is too much choice always a good thing? If given a plethora of choices, do we, as human beings, tend to make the healthy, positive ones? I also want to add, because I don't want to come off as some sort of NAZI who hates choice, that I love choice. I also love and applaud the human race's ability to analyze situations and make choices. However, I believe that choices can have both very positive, and very negative, effects on all of our lives. So, to finish I would like to encourage all of you to go out there and make positive, healthy choices. This is not just for yourselves as individuals, but for all of those (yes, including all of the animals) that inhabit this earth with you.