by Kathleen Kury Farrell
Choice and opportunity are emblems of freedom. But researchers tell us that the myriad options available to us are no longer liberating but quite oppressive. Studies indicate that the number of decisions we make every day – in the cereal aisle, at the espresso stand, on our cable TVs – are literally exhausting us. Perhaps more significant is the implication that the constant stream of relatively minor decisions we make may lead us to make poorer choices across all areas of our lives.
I wonder whether the number of choices available to us is the real problem. Maybe choice has become so challenging because we aren’t really equipped to make decisions, or because our communities don’t encourage a habit of using knowledge and tools that may help us. Most of us make daily decisions quite automatically: we eat what our families ate, what our friends eat, what is readily available, or what is on sale this week. And yet we all have decisions we just won’t compromise on, such as eating organic food, being loyal to a brand, or supporting family businesses.
What we care about deeply can be an invisible hand that guides the big and small decisions that we make: our human inclination is to bring our actions into alignment with our image of ourselves. Throughout life – and certainly throughout the K-16 years – this “self” is a work in progress. A tough choice for educators is whether and how to explicitly help young people develop not only self-understanding but to help them acquire tools for checking-in on who they aspire to be as students, community members, parents, and employees. You likely found the GoodWork community because of your own commitment to supporting students and/or colleagues in defining what excellence means, exploring meaningful pursuits, and considering how their decisions affect others.
Our research at the GoodWork Project consistently shows that young people struggle to make decisions about major aspects of their lives. Too often they fall prey to the mantra “not to decide is to decide.” The latter is certainly true when they follow their close peers into a college major – a trend documented in a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research earlier this year. We witness them “falling back” on their parents’ dreams or the profitable occupation du jour. It is also evident in their stories about taking the path of least resistance – often one down an unethical road – in order to develop traction in their careers. Not surprisingly, students struggle with the “minor” decisions too, choices that pit their personal values against what is the norm in their families and peer groups.
The great news is that most students are grateful for opportunities to stop and think about what they find personally meaningful. They are often surprised that not only can their personal values be a compass to guide decision-making but that, in fact, many admirable adults intentionally make time to think about decisions past and pending in order to evaluate how their choices measure up to their personal dreams, standards, and commitments. One university vice president who I much admire made it his habit to have weekly lunches with the president of the student government association. To a one, these students expressed gratitude not simply for the generosity of the V.P.’s time, but for the his willingness to model and share the ongoing process of aligning the responsibilities of one’s position and an organization’s dreams while refining personal ambitions, too.
It is similarly encouraging that many teachers, coaches, and parents are finding ways to help students discover what they care about deeply and encourage them to be mindful of how their choices reflect those personal values. We know, however, that this is difficult work at a time when economic decline casts a shadow on students’ aspirations and focuses the public’s eye on “basic skills” that rarely address how life gets lived or how work gets done. We invite you to use the Toolkit Forum to share ways you are honoring the third “E” of good work by helping young people in your life to discover what is personally engaging while, of course, helping them focus on the implications enacting their dreams may have for others.
Related Links:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-tyranny-of-choice