Multiple Choice

I like apples and oranges. They are delicious, colorful, and above all, fruity. One is crunchy and good in pies. The other is juicy and good in popsicles, as well as being considered by many (read: me) as the best candy flavor. I’ll let you guess which is which. I have room to love both in my heart (and stomach), but I still can’t help but compare them. It seems to be a constant refrain in my life. What do I like? And what do I like better? Everything becomes a choice between one thing or another, especially when it comes to how to spend my time. Every minute is precious as I rush from class to class, but I find that can spare more than a few when I curl up to procrastinate on my homework. My economics professor would call this concept, opportunity cost. Every time we choose, we are giving up the value of the next best alternative. Unfortunately, this mindset only sends me down a wormhole of absolute despair. Every situation becomes a loss. Every situation becomes a terrifying game of “what if….”. All this flashes through my head, as I stand in front of the baskets of fruit in the dining hall. The hustle and bustle of my fellow students mock my unmoving indecisiveness as I switch my gaze from apple to orange and back. I sense the impatience building up behind me, and grab a banana instead.

After several unsatisfying bites of banana, I am at another crossroads. Now, I want to go back and grab another fruit. The unknown is the most terrifying effect of choice. Perhaps that is why there has been so many periods of time where people have given up on choice all together. When everything seems bleak, there is an instinct to gift the responsibility and the regret that comes along with it to someone else. Personality driven governments rise because the people believe that a charismatic leader has all the right answers. However, there are times where you cannot shift the blame. President Truman famously had a plaque declaring “The Buck Stops Here” placed on the Resolute Desk. A mere seven months after he took office, he was faced with the most impossible choice of all, whether to drop atomic bombs on Japan. In deciding to go forward with the plan, he set off an unknowable chain of events that would lead to decades of Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Perhaps Japan would have surrendered anyway. Perhaps millions of American soldiers and Japanese civilians would have died during the inevitable land invasion. There is no way to know for sure. That ignorance is haunting.

I think that is why I find time travel so fascinating. It is a device that was made for indecisiveness. If only life could be as easy as picking up a remote control and flipping through the options. But there remains a choice. Even if I knew every possible future, I would still need to make a value judgement on which one was the most worthwhile. I think the critical mistake is thinking that a choice as a definition instead of a fluid thing. Life is a result of continues choices. I can’t just let one stop me in my tracks.