Pick Your Poison

I'm watching American Idol (yes I am, don't laugh at me) and I'm thinking how a lot of these kids are really talented.  And there are so many of them!  Hundreds of thousands of them show up each year to try out for this show and lots of them are really good.  How on earth do the judges pick among so many talented contestants?   Choice is a very difficult thing.  How does anyone ever choose anything?  How does a brain sift through the myriad mental inputs and produce a single finding?  I was trying to choose between writing about the Sequestration and the bankruptcy of the Girls Gone Wild production company, and here I am writing about American Idol, of all things.  How did that happen?

In 1984, Robin Williams starred in a movie called Moscow on the Hudson where he plays a Russian (Soviet) circus performer who defects to the United States.  There's a great scene where he goes to the supermarket and tries to buy coffee but he gets completely overwhelmed by the number of coffee choices, has a massive anxiety attack, and passes out.  And really, who can blame him?  He comes to America craving the freedom to choose his own destiny, and ends up discovering that all that freedom to choose is often just a bit much.  Personally, I've been known to become overwhelmed by having to choose among my extensive collection of coffee making devices and techniques, and that's not even getting into the subject of which brand of coffee to use.

So it's totally clear to me why people don't feel like they can make good financial choices, because really, the consequences of choosing the wrong coffee brand pale in comparison to those of choosing the wrong insurance policy or investment.  That's the thing about making choices --- there's always the risk you'll choose badly!  I mean you may be a very intelligent person, who doesn't watch American Idol and knows exactly which are the best coffee beans, but you could really screw yourself up by making a bad investment.  Some very convincing people have probably told you over the years which investments to choose among the millions of things you could put your money into, and how exactly should you choose who to trust?

I believe it was Devo, who said, "Freedom of choice. It's what you got.  Freedom from choice. It's what you want."

I suppose you could just say, "Nope, I'm not choosing."  Forget it.  I pass.

But isn't that also a choice?  Choosing to do nothing?  Going with the default?  And doesn't that choice carry the exact same weight that choosing badly would have?  Because choosing to do nothing can just as easily turn out to have been a really big mistake too.  And what if everyone did that and no one ever chose anything?  There would be chaos!  And we'd never have an American Idol winner.

So you might as well get informed and make the best decisions you can, because otherwise you either choose nothing, and forfeit all sorts of opportunities, or you choose everything, and end up on the show Hoarders.