What to do if you made the wrong choice. Wrong choice: should you trust the opinions of others? Lack of difficult and interesting tasks

Incorrect choice often plays a fateful role in our lives. Due to the impossibility of predicting subsequent events, our fate depends on luck. If that’s what we can call a series of events that satisfies us.

One Not correct solution deprived Michael of everything.

One ticket for the magnetic rocket, I said. I was offered a lottery ticket for change and I decided to accept. “Perhaps I’ll be lucky today,” I cheered myself up and went to seats.

In the rocket cabin, I gave the ticket to the controller. They announced the start of takeoff and turned on the gravitational fields on the seats. I was immediately pinned to the seat. A slight creaking sound was heard when the first one was turned on. magnetic field. The engines started working and now we have already accelerated to six hundred kilometers per hour. Such overloads of the body are harmful, but this is the most quick way will cross to the other hemisphere.

The shaking and grinding of metal will not spoil my great mood. Now that I quit my job, I can finally spend more time with Sarah. We will definitely get married and have two children. I will work as a gardener. With the current fashion for landscaping houses, this is a very profitable business. A lottery ticket added hope for a great future.

An hour passed and I arrived in my hometown. I hope that Sarah will support my decision. I took the Skytrain as it's the fastest way to get to the top of the city. Getting off at my stop, I decided to have a snack with my favorite hot dog and at the same time see my old acquaintance. He was a cook in a small establishment fast food. It's hard to find a great eatery with Earth food on Venus these days. When Ben flew here and opened this small establishment, his business took off. Here, everyone who arrived from Earth lacked their usual, native food.

Ben has always inspired me. I wanted, like him, to make this planet a little similar to my native one. Delivering earthly vegetation and greening Venus has been my dream since the first day of my arrival. But I had to look for another job and put my dream on hold until better times. I started mining minerals in mines. This job was clearly not right for me. Soon I met a girl and fell in love with her. Love brightened my days. I was waiting for the moment when I could finish my previous job and live happily together with her.

After chatting and eating, I left the diner. Now he was heading straight home. The blue roof of my home is already visible. My heart was pounding with impatience. I missed Sarah...
She wasn't there. After searching on the second floor, I decided that she had gone to get groceries. While I wait, I can cook lunch. As I approached the refrigerator, I noticed a note. After reading it carefully, I froze.

Briefly, she wrote that when she flew to Earth she met an old friend. After spending a lot of time she fell in love with him again, but did not want to break my heart. Knowing about my arrival, she boarded a ship to Earth today.
I was in despair. I didn't know what to do. Having taken some things, I decided to fly back. I moved away from this house. There was a pub on the way to the station. Despair pulled me there. Having forgotten myself a little for a while, I again followed to the station. Night has already fallen. The short way lay through the streets, not the brightest. Suddenly I felt something at my back.

Give me the money! - said the masked stranger. I didn't resist. He took my wallet and disappeared into the darkness. I didn't care anymore. I mindlessly continued to walk towards the station. Going out into the field (since Magnetic rockets are located outside the city), I remembered the lottery ticket that they gave me as change. Taking it out of my pocket, I discovered that I had given it to the conductor by mistake. Now I was holding in my hands a ticket for a magnetic rocket. Now I could go back. I just had to wait for rocket number 327, which is heading to my place previous job. Approaching the station, I heard the words of the dispatcher.

Three hundred and twenty-seventh is on the way - I’m lucky, I won’t have to wait long.
I decided to once again make sure of my “luck” and see if I really had a rocket ticket in my pocket. Trying to see the piece of paper in the darkness, I heard a strong roar: somewhere a building began to collapse. I turned around. It looks like 327 will never arrive. Control is lost. She rushed straight to the station, and nothing could stop her! I started running! Fell! Turning around, I saw the nose of the rocket right in front of me! This was the last thing I saw...

The session is over, the announcement sounded. I took off my holographic helmet, got up from my chair and headed towards the exit. It was already dark and cool outside. “Every year the films become more and more realistic!” I thought and headed home.

The wrong choice of word distorts the meaning of the statement, generating not only lexical, but also logical errors in speech. In such cases, they talk about using a word without taking into account its semantics, which changes the meaning of the statement. For example: “Mineral and vitamin supplements introduced into the diet are very high in calories.” The author meant, of course, that these supplements are useful.

Using words without taking into account their semantics can cause illogicality and even absurdity in a statement. In one essay it was written: “..And our Far Eastern birches stand in their wedding shroud” (the author confused the shroud and veil).

Words and expressions that soften the rough meaning of speech are called euphemisms (from the Greek eu - good, phзmi - I say). The euphemism of speech is often explained by the author’s desire to dull the critical edge of the statement when describing negative phenomena our life. For example, in local newspaper the correspondent reported: The collective farm board paid little attention to the protection public property. While it should be admitted that the collective farm board was irresponsible in protecting public property (or turned a blind eye to the theft of public property). Imprecise speech in similar cases leads the reader away from the truth.

Wrong word choice can cause various speech errors. Thus, due to inaccurate word usage, anachronism may arise (violation of chronological accuracy when using words associated with a certain historical era). For example, in Ancient Rome plebeians dissatisfied with the laws organized rallies” (the word “meeting” appeared much later, and in England).

Among the logical errors we will name alogism - a comparison of incomparable concepts, for example: The syntax of encyclopedic articles is different from others scientific articles. It turns out that the syntax is compared to scientific articles. Eliminating the illogicality, one can write: “The syntax of encyclopedic articles has a number of features that are unusual for the syntax of other scientific articles.”

The reason for the illogicality of the statement may be the substitution of the concept, which often arises as a result of incorrect word usage: It’s bad when all the cinemas in the city show the same film title. Of course, it is the film that is shown, not its title. One could write: “It’s bad when all the cinemas in the city show the same film.”

What makes our speech illogical is the unjustified expansion and narrowing of the concept that arises as a result of the confusion of generic and specific categories. For example: “With good milk yield, 12 kg of milk can be milked from each animal” (you should have used not the generic name - animal, but the specific name - cow).

Distortion of meaning and even absurdity of a statement arise as a result of a discrepancy between the premise and the consequence. For example: “The rate at which pests multiply depends on how persistently and systematically the fight against them is carried out.” It turns out that the more pests are controlled, the faster they multiply. In this case, one should write not about the reproduction of pests, but about destruction, then the idea would be formulated correctly.

Logical errors in speech not only create ambiguity in the statement and distort its meaning, but also lead to inappropriate comedy of speech. The parodic sound of certain statements in such cases negates the informational value. One advertisement, praising pills for those who want to lose weight, claims: “The company guarantees one hundred percent weight loss.”

One day in Springfield, the Simpson family visited Monstromart, a new supermarket with the slogan "Where shopping is a challenge." The choice of products was simply huge, the shelves with goods reached the ceiling, there were more than a thousand types of nutmeg alone. The family eventually returned to their usual supermarket, Apu's Kwik-E-Mart.

The Simpsons preferred a supermarket with a limited selection of goods. If you think logically, this is not the most rational action, but it creates the right feeling in the buyer.

They preferred to get satisfaction from what they could choose good product from several presented, and not get confused in the huge number of Monstromart products. And despite the fact that this is an animated series, this approach is quite real and is confirmed by examples from life.

Fewer products - more profit

More recently, Dave Lewis Executive Director largest British retail network for the sale of food and industrial goods Tesco has made shopping in its stores much easier. He decided to remove 30,000 of the 90,000 products from supermarket shelves. This was partly a response to the growing share of German retail chains Aldi and Lidl, which only offer about 2-3 thousand product lines.

For example, Tesco has 28 tomato ketchups to choose from, while discounters Aldi only offer one ketchup per pack size. Tesco offers 224 types of air fresheners, Aldi only offers 12, which is still 11 more air fresheners than needed.

Now Lewis is trying to make shopping at Tesco less time-consuming for shoppers. He conducted an experiment in 50 stores, making purchasing ingredients for dishes easier and faster. For example, Indian sauces were placed next to basmati rice, next to canned tomatoes- pasta.

Lewis took a revolutionary approach: he simultaneously reduced the number of goods and arranged them in in the right order so that customers spend much less time choosing and purchasing. And this had a positive effect on sales.

The very idea that big choice- it's bad, it challenges everything we've believed for decades.

The large selection is confusing

There is a standard belief that being big brings us freedom and new opportunities, but this opinion will not help you when you are standing in front of a huge rack of bottles of water, thirsty, but cannot make a choice.

American psychologist and professor social theory Barry Schwartz, in his book The Paradox of Choice, argues that in practice, too much choice only creates confusion.

A great example of this is shown in the jam experiment. IN grocery store equipped two display cases where customers were offered to try the jam and get a jar of jam with a $1 discount. One display case had six types of jam, the other - 24 types. Of the people who tried jam in a display case with six types, 30% bought a jar, and in a display case with 24 types, only 3% of buyers decided to buy.

Choice removes responsibility from the supplier

Let's consider another example - pension savings. Schwartz found that a friend's company offered 156 different pension plans. The professor noted that such a large selection seems to shift responsibility for the quality of the chosen plan from the employer to the employee.

When an employer provides few pension plans, it is responsible for their reliability and the quality of plans. But if he offers great amount plans, then, as it were, shifts the responsibility for choosing a quality plan to the employees: “We have given you a huge choice, and if you chose an unprofitable plan, then this is your miscalculation, and we have nothing to do with it.”

And this becomes a huge problem. How many of us feel competent enough to choose the best plan for ourselves from among 156 options? People are confident that they will make the right decision about pension savings- it is very important. “But instead of making a choice,” says Schwartz, “many people put it off indefinitely.”

One of his colleagues with access to a giant mutual fund company found that for every 10 new funds offered by employers, workers' contributions were reduced by 2%, even though they lost an excellent chance of receiving $5,000 a year from the employer.

Feelings of guilt and high expectations

“Even when we finally make a choice,” Schwartz says, “we feel less satisfied with the outcome than if we had fewer options to choose from. If you had many alternatives, it's easy to imagine that they are still better than what you chose. You worry that you made the wrong choice and it's really frustrating."

Thus, too many choices can make us unhappy due to regrets, guilt, and lost profits. Worse, the large selection creates new problem- high expectations.

Let's take for example. While stores sell only one type of jeans that doesn’t suit you, you take them, break them in, wash them, hem them, and they more or less fit you. And when there is a huge variety of jeans in stores: skinny, wide, with zippers and buttons, with high and low waists - you expect that there should be a model that will suit you perfectly.

And when you buy the most suitable model from those in the store, and realize that it is far from ideal and requires improvement, you get upset.

Schwartz suggests that, to some extent, having too much choice takes away from your sense of satisfaction. “The secret of happiness is low expectations,” says the professor.

Then no wonder we are unhappy. In the 10 years since Schwartz wrote the book, the idea of ​​huge choice has permeated every area of ​​life: schools, sex, parenting products, television. As a result, expectations have also increased greatly.

One area that has been impacted by this trend is dating. began to be treated like any other product: on the Internet we can find and select a promising sexual partner for ourselves.

Dating sites are one of the most common ways to find a romantic partner, and the huge selection on such sites becomes a real problem. A similar situation was shown by comedian Aziz Ansari in his book " Contemporary novel" In it, a woman made a date through a dating app, and while she was driving to the meeting, she looked to see if anyone better appeared on the app.

In such conditions, complete refusal of dating and relationships is gaining popularity. As sociology professor Eric Klinenberg has written, the unusually increased number of single people is due to the fact that people have more choice and fewer reasons choose. In Japan, for example, there are men who have real sex and romantic relationships simply because there is too much pornography on the Internet to suit every taste.

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo argues that because online pornography provides many options for satisfying one's desires through masturbation, real romantic relationship are becoming less and less attractive.

You pay more for the same thing

There's another problem: More choice masks the fact that you're paying more for things you already have. This happens a lot in the television industry.

For example, the BT Sport group of sports channels received exclusive rights to broadcast football matches of the Champions League and Europa League. On the one hand, it seems that viewers have more choice and more pleasure from watching. But if you're a subscriber to another channel, like Sky Sports, it means the opposite. To watch all the streams you watched last year, you'll have to pay more.

This happens often on . To watch everything good programs, you need to subscribe to many channels or buy a large package. And 10 years ago, when there was no such variety, you could watch all the good programs on one or two channels.

What is presented to us as a large selection actually costs more. For the average consumer, this choice is an opportunity to spend the same money and get less, or spend more and get the same.

Fear and worry about making the wrong choice

“Consider electricity,” says Professor Renata Salecl, author of The Tyranny of Choice. - The privatization of electricity did not bring the desired results: lower prices and best quality service. Instead, people constantly worry and feel guilty about continuing to overpay for electricity when there is probably a better supplier somewhere nearby.”

We believe that the choices we make after careful planning should bring the expected results - safety, pleasure. That by making the right choice, we will be able to avoid the unpleasant feelings of having to come to terms with loss or risk. But in the end, the opposite is true: when people are overwhelmed by the huge choice and when they worry about it, denial, ignorance and willful blindness are most likely to appear.

Still, Schwartz believes that having a little choice can be beneficial. For example, charter schools appeared in the United States in the 1990s. Because public school education in the United States is generally terrible, charter schools have begun to compete to improve the quality of education.

But, of course, things don’t get any easier for parents. Just like choosing a pension, choosing a school leaves you with a sea of ​​regret, shame, and fear that your choice isn't the best. It doesn’t make it any easier to think that your choice directly affects your child’s future.

Competition or monopoly

Against the backdrop of all this, in 2015, trends are emerging in the world by reducing choice, and this applies not only to products in supermarkets. In Britain, for example, politicians are proposing to re-nationalize railway and public services. Perhaps this will help reduce the anxiety and agony of choice among citizens.

Maybe what we really need is not an increase, but, on the contrary, a decrease in choice? Fewer competing companies, more monopolists. And before you remember Soviet Union with a deficit and identical goods, read the statement of PayPal founder Peter Thiel, who believes that monopoly is a great thing, and competition is not always good for both business and consumers.

In the real world, any business is only as successful as it can offer something that others cannot. Therefore, a monopoly is normal condition any successful business. In essence, competition is for losers.

Peter Thiel

How do you feel about the choice? Should we make it smaller?

PHOTO Getty Images

It is very difficult to face your fear. Decide and do something that has never been done before. Will it be the right step? What awaits us there? Wouldn't it be safer to leave things as they are? Before the Wright brothers, we didn't know we could fly. Before Tesla, we were afraid of lightning and could not imagine that there would be electricity in every home. Fear is both a gift that protects us from danger, and at the same time an obsession that makes us petrify.

But one thing that feeds fear and helps it grow is our attempts to avoid it. I can't tell you how many times I've felt fear about my future, and then every morning I found myself in it - and it wasn't so scary.

When we ignore fear, it grows stronger, but it also grows when we only half dare to approach it. So we freeze, not having the courage to move forward.

A simple technique helps me overcome these hesitations caused by the fear of making the wrong choice.

Letter from your future reality

• Take a piece of paper and write your name on it.
• Think about the difficult choices you are hesitant to make and how they will change your life over the next 6 months.
• Think about all the pros and cons and how much work you need to put into it. Think about what it will look like in detail: who you will be with, where you will be, what you will do and who will be around you. When a living picture appears in front of you, take a pen and write yourself a letter from there, from your fulfilled future. Don't forget that this letter is from the you of the future to the you of today who is still wondering what choice to make.
• Tell us how you are doing. What did you like and what obstacles did you have to overcome? Tell why it is good - that you did exactly this and not otherwise.
• At the end, be sure to express gratitude to yourself. For making this hard work and chose what brought change to your life. When finished, fold the paper and set it aside.

And one more letter - from your other future

• Now take another sheet. On this sheet of paper, you will write the same letter, but about how you made a different choice.
• All the same. Write about how you received it difficult decision 6 months ago. That you had to struggle with a lot and that you succeeded in a lot. As detailed as you can.
• Remember that you need to end this letter with gratitude to yourself for making this choice and not regretting it.
• Now put both letters aside for a while.

You've shown fear that it doesn't control you.

After a few days or a week, open them and re-read them. Pay attention to how you read them. Will you feel relieved reading one of them? Which one will make you afraid? Has anything changed in you after you re-read these letters from your two future nows?

This is very useful exercise, after it it will become easier for you to finally decide and choose one of the two. Especially if you feel afraid at the same time.

And that's why. By writing these letters, you looked your fear in the eye. You showed him that he does not control you, that you are free to choose your future, no matter if it goes in one direction or another.

This exercise also helps you step into the reality of each of these choices. By describing what they will lead to in every detail, without forgetting either the good or the bad, you begin to feel more clearly what your gut is telling you now.