I’ve been thinking a lot about choice lately. Choice is one of those slippery concepts.
Sometimes we get it confused with the similar word, selection. Those who want to sell us things, present us with a selection. That is, they have chosen which products to sell, and we can then select from among them. People who manufacture items choose what they will make. Then we can select which we will buy. The only real choices we have most of the time are who to buy from (and even then there may be so little difference as to make the choice meaningless) or not to buy at all.
My library, as most now days, has an online library system. We did have a choice as to vendor, limited by what we could afford, I imagine, but now we have to take what the vendor gives us. In thirty seconds I could name half a dozen improvements and changes to the acquisition s subsystem, which I use in my day job. For most of the things that would make my life easier, we don’t even get a selection, or if we do, we select what is best for our patrons, not worker bees like me. That’s not a complaint, by the way. It is right that we choose what works well for our patrons.
I do best when I have choices. I’m much happier when I can arrange my own work area and set my own agenda for what I get done any particular day. However, I am beginning to realize that all I really have are selections from a small group of tasks. In addition t that, time is controlled very strictly. I can work only a certain number of hours a day, and a certain number of hours a week. There is some, but very little, flexibility in when and where I work. It’s been growing gradually clearer to me that the only real choice I may have, maybe whether to continue to work there or not. I’m thinking hard about where my path will lead after I get my new book finished. I’m not quite sure how this is going to work out just yet.
