Making Sandwiches
Do you ever wish you didn't have SO MANY choices? Do you suffer from "decision fatigue?" Would your life be easier/better/more enjoyable if somebody else could decide what's best for you? I get it. No one wants to be the responsible adult ALL THE TIME.
That’s what we say, anyway.
But deep down we all want to be in control. Americans adore being in charge. We don’t want anyone to tell us what’s best for us.
The first year we lived in Canton we hosted a few girls from the Daraja Children’s Choir in Kenya. That experience was life-giving for our family, and especially for my kids, who were still in elementary school. The girls made Chapati for us, and we drank Chai Tea. They sang, laughed, and played. For three days, the choir filled our home with joy, and at the end of it, my daughter even decided she wanted to devote her life to missions!
As you can imagine, the transition from life in Kenya to life in the United States was a big one. The girls brought scrapbooks with them and shared with us pictures of their families, homes, and culture. For the most part, being a kid in Kenya was predictable and simple.
They did not wake up every morning asking our American questions:
What do I want to wear today? Why aren’t my favorite (jeans, hoodie, hat, t-shirt) clean?
Can I have a snack? Can I have another one? When are we eating? What’s for dinner?
Can you take me to the park? The zoo? The movies? Grandma’s House?
Can I have a play date? Can she stay longer? When does she have to go home?
Do I have to go to bed? Can I stay up ten more minutes? Where is my blanket?
In fact, the average American adult makes about 35,000 decisions in a single day, and kids make more than 3,000 (Source)!
Endless choices bring endless possibility.
That’s a good thing, right?
Well, not always.
Choices not only provide us with endless possibility, they also endow us with real responsibility.
One of my jobs as host home was to provide a sack lunch for the road on the last day. Everything I know about sack lunches I learned in elementary school. We had white bread and wheat bread, yellow mustard and dijon mustard, ham, turkey, roast beef, an array of cheeses plus all the other toppings you could imagine. But before I could ask them what they wanted, the chaperone pulled me aside.
“Chantel,” she said, “if you give them all these choices, they won’t be able to make a decision. They will experience major anxiety. Just make the sandwich. I promise they will eat it, and they will be happy, but if you give them these choices about ingredients they’ve never heard of and have never eaten, we will have a crisis on our hands.”
Ouch.
I was trying to be a good host, but I was about to cause a lot of anxiety for kids who were used to eating whatever was put on their plate.
The choices, even though they were well-intentioned, were overwhelming.
That was hard for me, an American, who believes that choice is the defining ideal of our democracy.
But while all choices may be good, all decisions are not.
Read: Having Too Many Choices is Stressing Americans Out
Read: Understanding the Psychology of the American Idea of Choice
Full and fulfilling lives are born from the choices we make.
To live fully we must face the array of possibilities in front of us, make choices, and live with the consequences of those choices, even though it means accepting imposed limits.
Ironically, there is freedom in limits.
Bonnie’s Story
My friend, Bonnie, knows a little about choices. Last year, she told me about a specific season of bad choices and how it almost ruined her life (You can watch our full interview here).
Bonnie failed out of Georgia Tech, a prestigious university that admits only about 10% of its annual applicants. Some kids dream their entire lives of going to school there. And now, she had gone and blown her chance of graduation. This high achiever—class president and honor scholar—threw away an elite education because she made choices that worked counter to success in school.
The dream died.
Negative thoughts, anxiety, and depression followed.
The Paradox of Choice
When you think about the choices available to you—remember, it’s more than 35,000—do you feel giddy with energy or flushed with panic?
Some people find decision-making—and being the decision maker—empowering.
But for others, having too many choices can be debilitating.
Sometimes, we make the wrong choice, suffer the consequences, and discover that the very next choice is the hardest one of all because we have to swallow our pride and accept the consequences. Looking at it from another perspective, however—that all other options have been eliminated—makes the next choice an easy one.
Bonnie wasn’t going to let her disappointment define her. She captured those negative thoughts, and used them for good.
“Please take me back,” she begged. “I want to finish what I’ve begun!”
Order Bonnie’s Book: Catching Thoughts
Even if you make a mistake, you can choose again. You can make a better choice.
Because we don’t live in Kenya, we must adapt to the large number of decisions we GET TO make everyday. And the good news is that our thoughts, which influence our choices, are malleable. We can learn to control them and equip ourselves (and our kids) to be more mindful. Change starts with a thought and continues with a choice.
Bonnie was lucky. Georgia Tech did take her back. And you know what? Nothing was wasted. God used that experience to shape a new story—one that Bonnie would eventually write down in the form of a children’s picture book. Her imaginative story teaches readers how to acknowledge unwanted thoughts with curiosity and compassion, while choosing to focus on thoughts that bring beauty, joy, and calm into their lives. (I love that!)
If I’m being honest, sometimes I wish I didn’t have so many choices. I don’t always want to be responsible for everything! At lunchtime, I wish someone would just make me a sandwich already (Don’t they always taste better when they’re prepared by someone else?) The buffet of options keeps me second-guessing. But from where I stand now, it looks like I’ll be doing my own grocery shopping for awhile.
And that’s okay.
I get to choose what I want on my sandwich.
And so do you.
Capture your thoughts, evaluate every decision, and remember:
a choice is both a privilege and an opportunity. Don’t let the fear of making the wrong choice keep you from making a perfectly acceptable one.
Watch the Barry Schwartz Ted Talk on the Paradox of Choice.
Watch my interview with Bonnie Clark, check out her website, and follow her on Instagram.
Pre-order Taste Your Words and Catching Thoughts. Attend the Book Launch!
For more content about how our thoughts and our choices affect brain development, check out Dr. Caroline Leaf’s book, or discover resources available through Dr. Jerome Lubbe, a functional neuroscientist in Atlanta, GA.