We Make Choices And Are In Turn

It's Easy To Assume People Are Conforming When We Witness Them All Choosing The Same Option, But When We Choose That Very Option Ourselves, We Have No Shortage Of Perfectly Good Reasons For Why We Just Happen To Be Doing The Same Thing As Those Other People; They Mindlessly Conform, But We Mindfully Choose. This Doesn't Mean That We're All Conformists In Denial. It Means That We Regularly Fail To Recognize That Others' Thoughts And Behaviors Are Just As Complex And Varied As Our Own. Rather Than Being Alone In A Crowd Of Sheep, We're All Individuals In Sheep's Clothing.

I Mean Can You Walk To School On Your Own? Can You Study Science? Can You Study Math? Can You Go To A Normal School? Do You Need To Go To A Special School? What Is Going To Become Of You When You Grow Up? Are You Going To Have To Live On Social Security And Ssi?

Then, The Other Thing That Affected My Interest In Choices Growing Up Was The Fact That I Was Going Blind And That Meant That There Were Lots Of Questions That Constantly Kept Arising About How Much Choices I Actually Could Have.

If You Have The Feeling Of Choice, If You Feel Free, You Will Be Better Off. And When I Say Better Off I Mean That If People Feel They Have Control Over Their Lives, They Call In For Fewer Sick Days From Work. They Have A Lesser Probability Of Having A Heart Attack Or Stroke. They Live Longer. They're Happier.

The Quality Of Health Care Continues To Improve, And People Are Living Longer, But These Developments Mean That We're Likely To Eventually Find Ourselves In A Situation In Which We're Forced To Make Difficult Choices About Our Parents, Other Loved Ones, Or Even Ourselves That Ultimately Boil Down To Calculations Of Worth And Value.