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April 30, 2023,
Life is about choices and options.
A good life is about making good choices.
A great life is about, well, you know the rest.
Every day, we make choices.
From the time we get up, to what we eat for breakfast, how early we will drive to work, or begin work at home, for how long and what we will spend the majority of our time working on, is a choice.
A choice is the range of different things from which a person can choose.
The arrival at a choice may incorporate motivators and models.
For example, a traveler might choose a route for a journey based on the preference of arriving at a given destination at a specified time. The preferred, and therefore chosen route can then account for information such as the length of each of the possible routes, the amount of fuel in the vehicle, traffic conditions and more.
The idea here is to begin thinking about how to make good choices on small things that will lead you to make great choices on larger ones.
Let’s turn to film with an eye to making choices.
A classic example of this portrayal is found in the haunting film and cautionary tale, Mullholland Drive.
Mulholland Drive is a 2001 neo-noir mystery film written and directed by David Lynch and starring Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller, and Robert Forster. It tells the story of an aspiring actress named Betty Elms (Watts), newly arrived in Los Angeles, who meets and befriends an amnesiac woman (Harring) recovering from a car accident. The story follows several other vignettes and characters, including a Hollywood film director (Theroux).
Among other things it is very revealing in terms of who Betty is in the opening scenes of the film while in pursuit of her dream to become a Hollywood starlit and who she eventually devolves into when she voluntarily walks away from the dream while she is standing at the precipice, to help a friend instead.
Director David Lynch is the master at projecting both experiences on screen.
In many of his films that we have watched, we don’t fully understand what is happening before our eyes, but we can intensely feel something, which is often very uncomfortable but captivating at the same time.
Mullholland Drive is a film that we literally had to watch three to four times, discuss it while dining at sidewalk cafés and coffee shops, clouded with enjoyable pontification.
Most of our analysis eventually proved to be wrong but that’s okay. It was the experience of having that level of conversation humbly well worth it.
Talk about a, giving up, cautionary tale. Talk about the importance of choice.
When Betty is pursuing her dream, she is so incredibly vibrant and alive, you can feel her energy burst through the screen and you absolutely love going on this adrenaline filled ride with her. The way she speaks to others, eyes wide open and the sense of urgency in every conversation is inspiring.
And enthralling.
Naïve though she may be, she makes you feel incredibly alive too.
Then when she has the screen test of her life, right in her hands, instead of fully taking advantage of it, she decides to help a friend who eventually rises to stardom due to Betty’s help and symbolically and unappreciatively spits in her face, like an emotional sledge hammer we feel Betty’s rapid decline.
It is so painful to watch her spiral downwards.
From our viewpoint, abandoning an important dream is not optional if you truly understand the ramifications that unfold after doing so.
The mistake that people often make is when they focus on the destination.
Positive or negative, they tend to forget about who it turns you into along the way when you abandon or pursue.
It is not a neutral choice.
Making the right choices, when they matter the most, is so important. Choices that could impact you for decades. We won’t say the rest of your life because if something doesn’t work out, who is responsible for changing that?
Let’s walk over to the bookstore. This great find might help you in how to make good choices in life.
The Elements of Choice: Why the Way We Decide Matters Hardcover – October 12, 2021
By Eric J. Johnson (Author)
A leader in decision-making research reveals how choices are designed—and why it’s so important to understand their inner workings
Every time we make a choice, our minds go through an elaborate process most of us never even notice. We’re influenced by subtle aspects of the way the choice is presented that often make the difference between a good decision and a bad one. How do we overcome the common faults in our decision-making and enable better choices in any situation? The answer lies in more conscious and intentional decision design.
Going well beyond the familiar concepts of nudges and defaults, The Elements of Choice offers a comprehensive, systematic guide to creating effective choice architectures, the environments in which we make decisions. The designers of decisions need to consider all the elements involved in presenting a choice: how many options to offer, how to present those options, how to account for our natural cognitive shortcuts, and much more. These levers are unappreciated and we’re often unaware of just how much they influence our reasoning every day.
Eric J. Johnson is the lead researcher behind some of the most well-known and cited research on decision-making. He draws on his original studies and extensive work in business and public policy and synthesizes the latest research in the field to reveal how the structure of choices affects outcomes.
We are all choice architects, for ourselves and for others. Whether you’re helping students choose the right school, helping patients pick the best health insurance plan, or deciding how to invest for your own retirement, this book provides the tools you need to guide anyone to the decision that’s right for them.”
That is a major key. No one can make great choices for you. Even our parents, though well-intentioned, can lead us in the right direction, but ultimately, only we know what the right choice is for us.
So, in terms of making choices, practice being a good choice architect on small situations, becoming more experienced with the elements that go into making good choices.
By doing so, when you reach a major intersection in life, you will know how to make a great choice.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulholland_Drive_(film)
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https://www.fcielitecompetitor.com/
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