…the choices we make are, ultimately, our own responsibility. –Eleanor Roosevelt
I am thankful for elevators and supermarkets for without them we would never had been blessed with Musak (Musak = the adulteration that takes rough edges off of certain songs and waves them through the air with bold blandness). I am also thankful for Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990). Malcolm was a brilliant English journalist and satirist and he provided us with the concept of “Newsak.” (Newsak = the incessant stream of noisome news that seeks us out no matter where we are). I am also thankful for the tsunami-like number of options that we now have. I remember my first ‘awakening’ to being whelmed over by options when my daughter was eight and my son was six. We had gone to Wisconsin to visit my parents. While there I decided to take them out to a nearby farm to purchase some honey; I had visited this farm as a child and had fond memories of the experience. When we arrived at the farm we were greeted by a young man who guided us to the ‘store.’ Yes, the little table that had held the honey jars had been replaced by a store! We entered and I stopped and stared. Oh, the honey was there alright. But what greeted us was a variety of honey – more than 30 as I recall. My children stood and stared – at the honey and then at me.
Today we have more and more options and like Musak and Newsak we have entered into the world of Choosak. On my cable system I have hundreds of choices – visual channels and audio channels. I am sitting here sipping my coffee (chosen from a number of flavors and types) looking at more than forty books lying within arm’s reach – oh, which one to choose to read. Choosak reigns.
Choosak involves making, for the most part, insignificant decisions – but choose we must (even if it is to choose to walk away). And there is something else that is happening because of life’s growing options. It appears to me – for I have experienced it in myself – that we are beginning to act as if choosak is actually discernment. We agonize over the decision and call it discernment (when it is more like ‘agony’). We pat ourselves on the back for reaching any number of decisions or conclusions. Our time and energy are focused on these and we seem to more and more ignore the more challenging issues of poverty, homelessness, crime, waste, environmental degradation, etc. We are not aware of – open to – friends who are in need (we don’t even know our neighbors). I can still see and feel my gut churning as my children agonized over which honey to choose. I wanted to yell – “Just choose one!” Perhaps I did. My recollection is that I asked them if they wanted me to choose the honey. They said yes and then I agonized over the choice they had given me.
Like choosing which honey to purchase, the number of choices we have often paralyzes us. Right now at this moment, there is, some place on our planet, a mother, father, and child and each is faced with making a choice. I can image the child checking out his or her parents for guidance or the child is trying to figure out which choice they would like him or her to make. The child cannot choose. I can image the parents’ growing frustration – the frustration that leads to: ‘Just Make a Choice!!!’ I suspect that any parent knows of what I write.
I can already feel the agony of choosak as I look ahead to how my day might unfold. Ah, the thrill of victory and the agony of choosak.
…choices bring consequences. –Ezra Taft Benson
Searcher-Seeker 