For those who are living in what one describes as a developed country, we may take the following issue that I will be discussing for granted. You see, many of us fail to take notice or do not place great thoughts with regards to this matter, is that, having the ability and freedom to choose, is something that many consider as privilege.
Having options available to use and the freedom for one to choose from them is something that we make not take great emphasis upon, however they are many people who will envy this. To them, having the ability or the freedom to choose is worth much more to, than having wealth, especially in emotional terms.
Many will currently disagree with what I'm about to comment, but think about it, there are many people each day, due to poor family backgrounds, being the only breadwinner in the house, in developing or third world country who are sold into prostitution, forced into slave labour whether they are a child or an adult because they have no choice. Of course who would want to be in their situation, but the issue is that they have no other choices available to them.
On the other hand, they are those who maybe extremely rich, such as children whose parents are extremely wealthy. The problem is that although being rich means they could afford pretty much afford and choose anything that is materialistic; but they do not have the freedom to choose their own educational or career paths. Why?
The reason being that children, who are born into families that are considered as well off, are constantly under pressure to perform and achieve the best grades.
Their parents also believed that private education is the best for them, and they must also study a degree in the professional sector such as law, accountancy, medical, science etc… so that it does not ruin the family's reputation of being middle or upper class in society.
Whilst on top of this, they must also learn a form of musical instrument, or enjoy the sports that they do such as golf, polo etc. and to only socialise with those in the same class of society as them.
The problem lies with that the children may not enjoy any of this, they may not enjoy learning to play the piano or the violin, or they may not want to study law, medical science, and prefer to study engineering, technology or computing, however because they are forced by parents who strictly control their educational and career path, they have no option other than accept it.
Much to my surprise is that although society's mentality has evolve where one is allowed to choose, the above mentality of parents controlling a kids options of education and career choices doesn’t just apply to those who are wealth.
The same mentality also applies still parents who aspire their child to be successful and famous, and a prime example is there are many traditional Asian parents who still regard the above mindset is the correct path for a child to become adulthood.
They believe that a child must follow their own dream of that the child must study a subject of which career is regarded as highly professional and well paid, drive lavishly expensive cars and makes them feel proud, that everyone will talk about how clever or intelligent their sons or daughter are, with many generations following the same example.
My aunt, uncles and cousins are a clear example of this previous mindset, which undoubtedly now is backfiring on them.
By all means, this is not a definitive description that every children born into wealthy household or parents, who have the financial capabilities that other parents envy of, act in such a way or exert such a control over their child’s life. There are always exceptions.
Same applies with Asian parents, with my parents being a clear example. They let me and my younger brother choose the education institute we wanted to study at, as well the course we wanted to study.
One major difference that I must highlight is we certainly did not start off with being wealthy at all, unlike my aunts, uncles, cousins.
In fact my parents at first had to scrape by to make ends meet, they both worked and when I was born, we lived in rented accommodation and I didn’t have any toys at all. Any toys I did have were either donated or were gifts from relatives, so there certainly any choice element there.
Most of the time though, my mum, who decided to take time off work to look after me, would take me and we would walk up to the local town to look at the toys in the high street stores. I would probably have a touch, a feel of them, but we never bought any of them.
Then a few years later, my younger brother arrived. Things were slightly better, my parents managed to save a deposit to buy their first home with the aided help of my dad's employer too. Of which we still live in today, but still, it wasnt exactly brilliant at that time.
However, we did at least started to have a choice, even though they might be minor things such as what birthday cake I wanted. To me at that time, it was wonderful; it was the first time I ever got to choose something that wasn’t already pre-chosen fir me.
Thus from a very early age, we always believed in keeping a low profile, being modest, taught that we must work hard. We certainly do not take for granted of the things we now own, partly because what my parents have achieved today all started from absolute nothing.
And finally, there are those who have far too many choices that they simply do not know what to choose and they misuse the freedom of choice by either being greedy and having every option available or simply they can decide what to choose, and so they spend hours, days, weeks, months or even years deciding.
Worse of all is that, if you were to present them with orienteering challenge or an challenge of any other sort, of which they were the leader, chances are that you would either get lost, or you would simply never ever start because they couldn't make their minds up on which direction to travel towards.
The point is that it is these type of people who further progress to developing an behaviour and mentality of being indecisive which can be considered as verging on dangerous, in terms of that nothing will ever be the same and that it can be extremely stressful for them and others around them, if they cannot decide on what their next action will be.
Not only that, when they are presented with a choice which is critical, life threatening or could have a profound outcome, they will either fear from choosing or they will simply misuse their power of choice, which would could have potential disastrous consequences.
Additionally, everything they do, they will always ask for someone
else’s opinions which mean they would rather conform to what others tell them to do and would render them in a position where the possibility of attaining one true potential success is significantly harder.
Or to put bluntly, if you lack the ability to decide or that you are indecisive when approaching decision, then you need to evaluate yourself seriously, because what that tells me and many others is that you are probably one of those people who jump on the band wagon for success, a person who dabbles their feet here and there, trying various ideas to attain success, and a person who may also be lacking in confidence and a compass direction of where one wants to reach or achieve in life.
Furthermore, the success that you will achieve in such a position is the only ones that people help decide for you.
If you ever want to be truly successful, then you must first understand that one must possess the ability to decide, take action and responsibility upon chosen option and that you need to stop being indecisive, in order to attain the true maxima of the success you actually really desire and want to achieve.
If you are interested in finding out more about self-help, understanding of life, inspirational, Motivational posts like "Options, Choices and Indecisions", then why not check out his blog at: http://nigelyip.com/ or if you prefer... Why not check out my latest book entitled I.M.Mentality - Purifying Your Mind For Success!!! Which can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/im-mentality-ny or on Amazon from January 2010 onwards!
