We’re faced with choices every day, tiny ones that we make each day like what to wear, what to eat, and which route to take to go to work & so on. In every stage of our lives, however, we are presented with some hard choices or bigger choices that we think could alter our lives considerably, for seemingly better or worse.
Such choices can be which career to choose, where to live, whether to move to a different city or country, who to marry & other such hard choices.
“Think of a hard choice you'll face in the near future. It might be between two careers -- artist and accountant -- or places to live -- the city or the country -- or even between two people to marry -- Or it might be a choice about whether to have children, to have an ailing parent move in with you, to raise your child in a religion that your partner lives by…”
“Chances are, the hard choice you thought of was something big, something momentous, something that matters to you. Hard choices seem to be occasions for agonizing, hand-wringing, & the gnashing of teeth. But I think we've misunderstood hard choices and the role they play in our lives. Understanding hard choices uncovers a hidden power each of us possesses,” says philosopher Ruth Chang.
Comparing a hard choice with an easy choice — in an easy choice, one option is clearly better than the other. But in a hard choice, both alternatives seem rewarding in some ways & have their inherent drawbacks in others.
So because they’re slightly better or worse in some ways give or take, it leads us to often mull over & try to find the best choice after a lot of deliberation. This is primarily because both choices in a hard choice, seem at par & neither choice is outrightly better than the other.
“In any easy choice, one alternative is better than the other. In a hard choice, one alternative is better in some ways, the other alternative is better in other ways, and neither is better than the other overall. You agonize over whether to stay in your current job in the city or uproot your life for more challenging work in the country, because staying is better in some ways, moving is better in others, and neither is better than the other overall.”
“We shouldn't think that all hard choices are big. Let's say you're deciding what to have for breakfast. You could have high fiber bran cereal or a chocolate donut. Suppose what matters in the choice is tastiness and healthfulness. The cereal is better for you, the donut tastes way better, but neither is better than the other overall, a hard choice.”
“Realizing that small choices can also be hard, may make big hard choices seem less intractable. After all, we manage to figure out what to have for breakfast, so maybe we can figure out whether to stay in the city or uproot for the new job in the country. We also shouldn't think that hard choices are hard because we are stupid,” Chang adds.
Ruth Chang faced such a dilemma after graduating from university. She had to pick between becoming a full-time philosopher and becoming a lawyer. She took the safer option like most people would when presented with hard choices and chose law. However, working as a lawyer didn’t suit her, so she eventually got back to the choice that was her passion — philosophy.
“Fear of being an unemployed philosopher led me to become a lawyer, and as I discovered, lawyering didn't quite fit. It wasn't who I was. So now I'm a philosopher, and I study hard choices, and I can tell you, that fear of the unknown, while a common motivational default in dealing with hard choices rests on a misconception of them.”
“It's a mistake to think that in hard choices, one alternative really is better than the other, but we're too stupid to know which, and since we don't know which, we might as well take the least risky option.”
“Even taking two alternatives side by side with full information, a choice can still be hard. Hard choices are hard not because of us or our ignorance; they're hard because there is no best option,”
“Now, if there's no best option, if the scales don't tip in favor of one alternative over another, then surely the alternatives must be equally good… But that can’t be right.” says Chang.
Imagine choosing between a job you’re deeply passionate about & a job that pays more: a hard choice we often face.
On one hand, the passion job will give you the drive to work, purpose & meaning in your life, and more family time & flexible work timings but the high-paying job could make you & your family considerably financially well-off.
You’re mulling over it, suddenly you get a message that the higher-paying job is offering you $500 or $1000 more per month.
Now, what would you do?
Most people would take the higher paying job & the extra cash. But if both choices seemed at par with each other initially, changing one has now seemingly made the higher-paying job the better option.
Chang uses the example of a choice between pursuing a career in graphic design or becoming an investment banker. The graphic design job could allow more family time, more excitement for work & a work-life balance & flexibility. While the investment banking job offers more money & a faster way to climb up the ranks professionally.
So now, they seem like equally good choices. However, if the investment banking job offered more money, the said $1000 or $500 extra, the scales tip towards the banking job making both choices unequal now.
Most people would take up the banking job & the salary incentive, & maybe enjoy it for a short while but live to regret it as they get older.
She argues that being post-Enlightenment era creatures, we assume that scientific reasoning behind making choices is the right one. But, that’s a fallacy.
In science, if you compare two numbers there are only three possibilities, one is more, or less, or equal to the other. So by trying to quantify these life choices, we’re making a mistake by taking a predominantly logical approach.
So these choices are deeper than science & logic. It’s more humane & these choices are more about what it means to be humans experiencing this life.
Imagine if we lived in a world where you always chose the best choice. Every option is optimized for you to make the best choice. And you keep making the best choices every day, every moment until you die. That’s like living in some kind of dystopian video game where you always take a right instead of a left & like Super Mario you always eat the mushrooms.
“We need to introduce a new, fourth relation beyond being better, worse or equal, that describes what's going on in hard choices. I like to say that the alternatives are "on a par." When alternatives are on a par, it may matter very much which you choose, but one alternative isn't better than the other.”
“Rather, the alternatives are in the same neighborhood of value, in the same league of value, while at the same time being very different in kind of value. That's why the choice is hard. Understanding hard choices in this way uncovers something about ourselves we didn't know… Each of us has the power to create reasons.”
“Imagine a world in which every choice you face is an easy choice, that is, there's always a best alternative. If there's a best alternative, then that's the one you should choose, because part of being rational is doing the better thing rather than the worse thing, choosing what you have most reason to choose. In such a world, we'd have most reason to wear black socks instead of pink socks, to eat cereal instead of donuts to live in the city rather than the country, to marry Betty instead of Lolita. A world full of only easy choices would enslave us to reasons. When you think about it, it's nuts to believe that..”
Living like that can be unbelievably banal, like a graph that only progresses linearly.
So what do we do then?
The answer lies in introspection & a change in perspective. Instead of looking externally for what we can get out of the choice, we need to look inward & make the choice based on who we are & what aligns with our makeup as human beings. It could be our passions, what we want to experience, what our life goals or plans are, what’s better in the long run for our family, or whatever is important to us.
Furthermore, maybe we need to appreciate the choices, especially the hard ones because they entail what it means to live as humans experiencing this gift of consciousness.
This shift of perspective can take you from stressing, over-analyzing, and being anxious about a hard choice, to being relaxed and choosing the best one depending on what resonates with you & your core being.
“It's here, in the space of hard choices, that we get to exercise our normative power - the power to create reasons for yourself, to make yourself into the kind of person for whom country living is preferable to the urban life. When we choose between options that are on a par, we can do something really rather remarkable. We can put our very selves behind an option.
Here's where I stand. Here's who I am, I am for banking. I am for chocolate donuts. This response in hard choices is a rational response, but it's not dictated by reasons given to us. Rather, it's supported by reasons created by us.
When we create reasons for ourselves to become this kind of person rather than that, we wholeheartedly become the people that we are. You might say that we become the authors of our own lives.”
“So when we face hard choices, we shouldn't beat our head against a wall trying to figure out which alternative is better. There is no best alternative. Instead of looking for reasons out there, we should be looking for reasons in here: Who am I to be?"
“You might decide to be a pink sock-wearing, cereal-loving, country-living banker, and I might decide to be a black sock-wearing, urban, donut-loving artist. What we do in hard choices is very much up to each of us,” argues Chang.
So maybe this hard choice you have or one you are about to have isn’t as bad as you first thought. Instead of looking externally for reasons introspect & instead of dreading having to make a hard choice, enjoy it & make the most out of it — you can always take the other choice at a later stage; nothing is final.
The decision you make when presented with hard choices is part of life. After all, it’s what makes us human & there’s always time for a turnaround. So we shouldn’t worry or attach a lot of depth & consequence to a hard choice, we should perhaps choose what we really want.
In her TED Talk, philosopher Ruth Chang explains this need for a change of thinking when it comes to hard choices, & how it changes the way we look at them, making us the authors of our life stories with examples from her life, her work, & her philosophical study of hard choices.
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