5 traits we’re losing with too many daily decisions

11 May, 2023

It’s a wonderful time to be alive. We have never been so advanced, and have never had more options, and daily decisions. With the internet, literally all of our collective information is at our fingertips –wherever we go. We can choose to listen to any music at any time. And can watch a plethora of programs on a list of different platforms that in turn offer us multitudes of different program options.

We can find and purchase things from all over the world. And we can then acquire them, sometimes in less than a day. We can order food from all of the restaurants in our city or town, and it’ll come right to our door. Our options in life, are literally endless, they’re ever growing, and they amount to so many daily decisions. And then, everyday we awaken to even more. That truth is intense. Choices, regardless of size, are depleting. Why are we so anxious? Why are we so overwhelmed? And why do we feel so lost? Perhaps this responsibility to make the right decision constantly, has something to do with it…

What would it feel like not to have a decision to make about some particular thing, and to just have one option? Would you feel cheated? Angry? Maybe you’d be ok with it. Maybe you’d have the energy to make the bigger, more important decisions if you hadn’t been making all those tiny ones at every corner and in every breath.

In our incessantly growing world of opportunities, choices, and daily decisions, here are some of the things that we may in fact be losing, as we ponder the scent of the hand soap that will express our personality best.

1) Attention Span

We used to have, and work to grow our attention spans. An attention span used to be a necessity. And it used to be something that we slowly worked to lengthen. From years of effort in school, in work, and in our hobbies. And from immersing ourselves in different skills that we desired to improve at, and learn about. But having an attention span doesn’t seem as integral (or common) as it once was.

Our phones have offered us temptations, and tiny options that somehow seem more emergent and more important than whatever it was that we had been thinking about. Every site and app is competing for a piece of our attention, looking for us to make a decision, the decision to choose them. As soon as we put our eyes and thumbs on our phone, the fight begins. An attention span gets the sellers nowhere. The choices are incessant and exhausting. When we are weak, however, we’re pliable. More likely to buy it. but we don’t notice our exhaustion until we put it down.

Take some time for yourself. Set down the mental hurricane that is your phone for a bit. Bring your attention to your desired endeavor and leave all the extra for another time. In order to hone an attention span, we must be still, and focused. We must take the time and conviction to leave all the micro decisions. Take some time with one choice. Pick it mindfully. Leave your phone, turn off the tv. And focus on something that intrigues you. One of your daily decisions can be to lessen those decisions.

2) Patience

Patience used to be a virtue. I remember adults and wise people telling me that when I had not a single white hair and a more fiery conviction. And they were right. But, I don’t really hear people saying it anymore. It seems to have become considered an outdated, unnecessary attribute. But it isn’t. It is merely, and sadly a lost art. And if anything, it’s even more powerful and more integral that it once was. But somehow, in this version of our world filled with incessant daily decisions, we don’t feel that we should have to wait.

Things move fast and it only seems right that we get what we want when we want it. But, that hurried mentality changes so much about who we are, and about the world. And those changes affects and injures us in ways we might not take note of. Because the truth is, the more accepting we are that we’ll have to wait for something, the more thoughtful we will become about this choice that we are making.

If you can get it now or even tomorrow, it loses a particular level of value. If it’s easy to get it, we won’t think too much on it. We’ll be flippant and unimpressed. We’ll act without thinking. With ‘throw away things’ come ‘throw away thoughts’. “So what if it’s not quite what I need, I’ve come up with something that I want more tomorrow” And with our plethora of daily decisions, we’ll have no choice but to care a little less about the decisions we make. And so, our respect for things diminishes more as we go.

And I’ll leave you with yet another aged, forgotten, but wise phrase, “Good things come to those who wait.”

3) Appreciation

We put our self-worth and our aspirations of happiness into the items that we covet. Products that we scrolled through on instagram barely noticing the effectiveness of their marketing. We saw it and thought to ourselves, “I need that.” We say that phrase all the time without thought. And so we don’t realize how far from the truth it actually is. It’s likely that we actually do have everything that we need. But how hard is it for us to see that truth? It’s ingrained in us to crave our next purchase. And the endless daily decisions bombard us.

We fantasize, we rationalize, we prioritize… What we have deemed our present ‘need’, is everything for us until we get it. Nothing else matters. Certainly not our old things. Functionally, they’re perfectly good, and so we certainly wouldn’t get rid of them. But really, I ‘need’ something new. Our homes slowly fill up with yesterday’s desires. And yesterdays desires become todays and tomorrows stresses. Our assumed remedy for this discomfort? Well, we need something else, of course. The sooner – the better. We need it now, or at least tomorrow. And in the meantime, we’ll order something else. Appreciation is a lost art as well, it’s at the bottom of a growing pile.

4) Ease

It might sound crazy, but all these options, the endless daily decisions, and the speed at which we can get whatever it is that we decide upon, can in fact be a monumental, and incessant stresser. Because of unceasing options, the need to make yet another decision, never leaves us to just be. There is always something that needs our attention, from the moment we awaken, to the last breath as we close our eyes and drift to unconsciousness. There is something to decide upon. And all those tiny options zap a little speck of energy every time we have to decide something, it all adds up to… exhaustion. True ease is in the long game. Ease comes when we are still. It comes when we can appreciate right now. Nothing to decide upon, and all the time to just be.

5) Wealth

So many of these choices that we have to contend with are related to purchases. I used to say, “well I don’t really mind if they direct their sales marketing to me, because then it’ll be easier for me to find what I really want”. Now that mentality is a sign of our times. The idea of truly not needing anything is a lost concept. It seems boring and uneventful. Using things until they wear out isn’t comprehensible anymore. We use them when we get them and then we realize that there’s something that we want even more than that last thing. And so the decisions keep coming as we lose our piece of mind and our money.

Conclusion

We’re unsettled, going down a roller coaster, constantly afraid we’ll miss something if we blink, or look away. We’re not quite sure about anything. We don’t have the time to digest or to take a breath.

We might think that having many options and choices is the height of luxury, just what we want, options. But the truth is, all these options could be burning us out. There is another way. And it isn’t the antithesis of youth and free thinking.

To have less things and choices is to naturally come to respect what we do have. And as we take our own time to find space in between all of the choices; to take a breath and to get clear on how we are really feeling, we may just come to see what is truly important to us a bit more clearly.

Thank you so much for your support,

Lyndsay