The more the things change, the more they stay the same.
The increasing availability and proliferation of products (humans too!) have brought a paradigm shift in the consumer world. How to make a consumer? How to keep a consumer and how to win over them. The whole idea revolves around our choices and our ability to choose both, within the aspects of business and in our personal lives.
WHAT'S WITH THE CHOICES?
Every time we are told to live life on our own terms compiled with all the 'Instagram photos' of people leading such a happy life and the hows and the ifs, keep adding to our lives or, are they made to add? There is nothing wrong with the vast unexplored world getting all untangled to us but the question is, do we really get a choice to choose? Even if it does, we don't really choose or, are selective but still agree with everything.( It is as complicated as it seems to be!) We believe that we are entitled to choose whatever we wish to be when actually, it is a mirage formed by the society's perceptions of how we should ideally be, spending our whole lives to reach to the mirage..merging reality and illusions and nothing is as disturbing as linking it directly to the path of happiness. We have so many choices and pertaining to them, we are confused as to what is good and how much is bad but before that, we need to define limits to that( have we?). Humans tend to know their situations or pretend to be intellectuals(yes, pretend to be.)
The uncanny origin and resemblance of... choice and life.
We are more focused on how to adopt yet criticize (behave like a pseudo-intellectual now!). What we focus nowadays is to how to defeat others instead of how to win us over us. We have fragmented ourselves into million facets and seem to be busy fixing it but with the internet walking in our lives as our shadows, we might think the world is more closely knit together than before and makes us feel much more liberated but on the flip side of it, we have become prisoners of reality. We wish to burn bridges to everything we choose, but the question which keeps floundering is- if there is a room for two??
"The Paradox Of Choices: Why more is less" by Barry Schwartz.
The invariable number of choices increases the level of anxiety, depression, and self-questioning. Living in a world where a new idea just clicks and go, the book, 'The Paradox Of Choices' is still floating in the minds of all generations. It makes us believe that with so many choices, we will lead somewhere when we actually end up with nothing but being a human is a privilege, we don't generally leave things to which we haven't said goodbye.
We do stick our noses where it doesn't belong to but, isn't that how we got played by all the big brands, acquaintances, parents and 'us' as well. Business aside, as we get flooded by the choices in the present competitive world, it makes our mind disillusioned and perplexed but, so many options all thrown as the 'best' puts us in the dilemma of what we will be and what we are. So many choices prove to be the mother of creativity and provide a great platform but, it comes with a counter question hammering our mind, what if we choose 'this', we will be a little less...of 'us' then? Or, we are eavesdropping on our own conversations? Whatever it is, we all think we are not who we thought we were and these many choices just add fuel to the fire.
What our generation has failed to understand is the pursuit of happiness at all times. Choices are meant to make you happy. Self-introspection is meant to make you happy. Family, lifestyle, clothes, cars, relationships, friends and everything is supposed to come with the happy 'pill' but anything else, does not and should not exist, the dejection is straight from the heart - we have actually made ourselves vulnerable to getting the blues almost on the daily basis. We always wish to be happy and we should, but does that mean other expressions don't exist? We hope that future will bring happiness and the happy moments have become a matter of past while the present seems to be in the need of filling some unknown void.
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