Choice - who needs it? All the time? Really?

Posted on June 26, 2008

Sometimes, I can be lazy, I don’t feel like being challenged in any way, and I want what I always have.

I want the safe option. This most often rears its ugly, boring (yet strangely comforting) head in restaurants or other food places, particularly when I’m tired.

If left to my own devices, I’ll pick something I know I’ll like. If I’ve been to the restaurant before, it will probably be the same thing I’ve had before.

Boring!

Sometimes, deciding for myself is just too hard, especially at one of those places where the menu is particularly large, or all the options look equally good. Sometimes I just don’t know enough to make a fully informed choice.

So, sometimes, I don’t make a choice - I left someone else make it for me.

Imagine saying to a bartender “Surprise me!”

Or ordering a from a juicebar, saying “What’s your favourite? What do you think I should have?”

Or at the chinese restaurant, when they ask you if you’d like the large or the small rice “No idea, which one do you think we’ll need?”

Or saying to the person you’re out for dinner with “You order what you like. Order your favourites. Get enough for me too please?” No recriminations allowed!

“What does the chef feel like cooking?”

Historically, I’ve been all about the dark clothing. Recently, I’ve taken to saying to shop assistants “What would look good?”, and I’ve got some of my favourite new clothes that way.

Some years ago, I went into a music shop that specialised in electronica and said “I like fairly dark and industrial style music” and listed a few bands. An hour later, after spending time with a stack of CDs in a listening booth, I walked out with some psytrance and dirty D’n'B.

Get a friend to lend you some books. “Just give me three you think I should read”. Commit to only rejecting them if you’ve already read them.

Hitting “random” on your entire MP3 library.

Having the choice is all well and good, but sometimes it can be remarkably freeing to make the choice to not choose.

Image by Peter Garnhum

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