How do our choices impact others?

Every choice we make in life will always affect someone. At times, they might impact us for the most part. But most of the time, our decisions will have a significant impact on others as well.

For example, what degree we choose to pursue, and what job we decide to practice mainly influences our own lives, but also that of our parents, and possibly other family members as well. They have their thoughts and worries about what career path we decide to take, and what job we should go after.

This conveys that every decision we make is important, and doesn’t alter our existence exclusively.

How to make good decisions in the future

Learn how to make good decisions

One of the simplest solutions, or at least part of the answer, is that one should learn how to make good decisions.

We do that by bundling our intuition from our unconscious mind together with the rational thoughts from our conscious mind. We should use all the information, both objective and subjective, that we have at our disposal.

A lot of people think with emotions instead of applying their common sense and rational thoughts. Sometimes, we need to exercise the ability to forego the immediate, smaller gratifications of our impulsive desires and emotions to gain a much bigger reward in the future. Or, in layman’s terms, we need to learn to delay immediate gratification.

Learning how to apply critical thinking skills and how to be introspective is paramount as well to make good selections.

Take responsibility for the consequences of your choices

Take ownership of your choices and, even more importantly, of the outcomes of those decisions.

One thing we all need to learn as a well-functioning adult in today’s society is to take responsibility. You are liable for your own life, your happiness, and your own successes and failures in this existence.

If you place all those things into someone else’s hands, then you’re effectively handing over the power and command over your own life to somebody else. You won’t have any real control over your own life and how you decide to live it.

The advantage of giving your power away is that you always have an excuse when things don’t work out in your favor. “It was their fault, not mine.” “It wasn’t my decision.” “I’m always so unlucky with what happens in my environment.”

These are all poor attempts at rationalizing why things didn’t work out in your favor, instead of facing the cold harsh truth. The fact is that it’s your responsibility, and your duty alone, to make something out of your life.

Sure, others can enrich your life, and even help you to achieve your full potential. But you should never solely depend on another person to make your life prosperous, nor to become content.

Do choices have consequences?

Yes, each choice you make has consequences. Each decision has its positives, but also negatives.

Your choices have consequences for the present, but also the future. That’s why you should think, and consider things carefully before making a decision.

Do all choices have consequences?

All choices have consequences. No matter how small and insignificant they might seem.

That’s why we shouldn’t underestimate the impact of our selections, and that is why we should carefully consider our available options before picking.

The key is to make the choices that have desirable consequences, while simultaneously minimizing the unwanted outcomes.

What are the potential negative consequences of choices?

Choosing is losing

The consequences of choices are that you will need to pick what you decide to gain, but unfortunately also what you will lose. Even winning requires sacrifice, and making a decision is no different.

Because you can’t have it all in life, no matter how many choices you have at your disposal. Having too many choices isn’t always beneficial, and can even lead to choice paralysis.

For example, when you select to eat healthy, drink water instead of unhealthy beverages such as soda and alcohol, and decide to work out instead of sitting on the couch all day, you’ll be in great shape.

You’ll be fit, full of energy, ripped, and age much better overall. Those are some of the things you gain due to living a healthy lifestyle.

However, while that sounds great on paper, you’ll have to sacrifice some things as well for your well-being. You’ll have to lose out on some other attractive options if you want to succeed.

It means you’ll have to forego delicious, yet unhealthy foods and ingredients such as fast food, saturated fats, and sugar. It also imparts that you have to exercise instead of watching TV all day. You might even have to cancel your typical plans of going out with your friends on the weekend just to resist the temptation to drink alcohol.

Thus, every decision we make is a forfeiture in itself. It’s up to us to measure if what we gain is worth the loss.

Choice overload

Having too many options available can lead to the psychological phenomenon known as the “consequence of choice” or, “choice overload.”

It entails that the more options you have to pick from, the harder it will be for you to select which choice to take. That’s because you have so many options available that there’s simply no way to know what alternative is the best one.

When you finally decide to pick a choice, you’re no longer sure you’ve made the right call because you have so many options on hand.

What are the positive consequences of choices?

Despite the potential downsides of having too many choices, I still think it’s overall much more beneficial to have a multitude of options available, as it’s very hard to have too many options accessible to you.

These are the potential positive consequences of choices:

• Teaches you to think about what you want from life

  Making decisions, and having multiple options available means you’ll have to think about what choice is the most beneficial to you for what you want to achieve in life. Knowing what you want to accomplish means you’ll have to make value judgments to figure out what’s most important to you.

  It’s extremely difficult, if not impossible to attain something when we don’t even know what we’re aiming at. That’s why you need to think about it carefully and formulate a detailed plan of what exactly it is that you want to reach along the line.

• Teaches you to make a decision

  Some folks are terrified of the thought of having to decide on their own. Possibly because they’re afraid of making the wrong choice, or because they’re paralyzed by fear because of the wide plethora of options.

  But everyone will have to reach their conclusions and make their own selections sooner or later. That’s why it’s best to learn it when you’re still young and highly adaptable. This way, you’ll get the maximum benefits for the rest of your life.

• Making bad decisions helps you learn more

  

  Every choice you make, whether it’s a good one, or a bad one, will teach you something valuable if you keep an open mind and a humble attitude.

  Even more so, bad choices usually mean we’ll learn even more since we’re more likely to look at what we did wrong to prevent painful experiences in the future. People are motivated to prevent painful experiences since we feel negative emotions more strongly than we do positive ones.

  That’s why we’re more inclined and probable to learn from failure and mistakes than from our successes.

• Becoming more confident

  Seeing that you can take care of yourself and that you have the necessary courage to make your selections in life, all the while dealing with the consequences that come along will make you more confident in your abilities.

  You need to be confident to make good, well-thought-out decisions. You can’t start picking out of a fear and scarcity-based mindset. Selecting out of fear is a recipe for disaster since you’re not deciding based on what’s best for you, but rather as an attempt to avoid fear and pain.

• Living a balanced life

  Having a multitude of options means we can pick and choose to our liking. It’s hard to live a balanced life when we have little alternatives available to us.

  But having an ample amount allows us to pick the ones that are best suited to our personal goals. This means that we can live a balanced life by selecting the solutions that fit our personality and lifestyle the most.

• Living a happier life

  

  Having a large variety of options on hand doesn’t immediately make us happier. But having too few automatically makes us less content since we’re not free to pick those that we want and desire the most.

  Thus, we should aim to put ourselves in a position of power. And that’s what power is, having a multitude of choices at your disposal.

• Peace of mind

  Knowing that you have a large plethora of options to pick from automatically makes you feel safer, and more secure than you would be having too few choices accessible to you.

  It won’t automatically make you happy, but it can help to create a sense of safety since you know that you have more than enough alternatives for when the situation calls for it.

• Free to focus on the things that are most important to you

  Having choices at your disposal means you’re free to focus on the things that are most valuable to you. Every individual is different, and thus, so are the things we want, desire, and decide to pursue in the end.

  Still, people are more alike than they are different. This automatically means that there are some common things that we will all want such as security, love, friendship, and so on.

• Free to change your life

  

  Having a lot of options available to you means it’s easier for you to change your life in whatever direction you want it to. Since everyone has their own unique personality, it’s only logical that we decide to look for contrasting things. Nevertheless, people are still more alike than they are different.

  And going after diverse things, all the while having a distinguishable personality means that we can’t all take the same path and expect the same results. Different strokes for different folks. It’s that simple.

• Sense of achievement

  Making our own decisions and carrying the load and responsibility that comes along with those choices aid in creating a sense of achievement.

  It’s not that self-evident to make your own choices, since that also involves having to take ownership for all the failures and mistakes we make. The human ego makes it hard to admit we’re not perfect indeed.

  That’s why having other people making the decisions for us can be such an attractive alternative for some. It means we have someone else to blame instead of ourselves when things don’t pan out the way we want them to.

• Better relationships

  It’s easier to pick and choose who we deem appropriate and beneficial to our overall life when we have a lot of people wanting to befriend us.

  This can lead to better, more intense relationships with the individuals we view as worthy of our attention and love. We must keep our social circle filled with people who want the best for us, and who are an enrichment to our life.

• Respected by others

  

  Having options means having power, and a sense of control over your existence. People respect power, and thus, having a lot of choices at your disposal will make other folks respect you.

  Of course, you should put yourself in a position of power first and foremost for yourself, and to satisfy your own demands and desires. But it’s always a plus when others respect you as a person, and what you’ve accomplished.

What is the meaning of choice and consequences?