[Criseyde]

Originally Posted by raskolnikov

No, I agree that 'waiting for the perfect' is not the subject of this post. What I was pointing at was the whole idea of abstracting relationships to the point where it perhaps get so abstract and theoretical that we (be 'we' I probably mean 'I') get hesitant to choose?

Sure, it's possible.

I live in the ex Soviet Union where family patterns are very different from my home in Scandinavia. Here, people marry young, get kids young and are in many ways a lot more practical about their relationships. Things are in general much more traditional that in many Western countries. This is not meant in a negative way. I'm not try to rank one way of life over another.

But it's interesting to see how people here seem to be less concerned with perfect and more concerned with functional. In a lot of cases I've been very impressed with how very young people tend to make much more pragmatic decisions than we typically do in the West. In many Western countries, choices for young people are so endless that everyone tends to get confused about it. That's not the case here.

Well... I'm American and I've never been behind the Iron Curtain (although I'd love to go!!), so I can't speak to that. But my mom is an Indian immigrant, so I have some experience with non-American norms. She's talked about this a bit: when she was growing up, in school, people were "tracked," so you had 15 year olds deciding what field they were going to be in for the rest of their lives. And of course, most marriages were (and often still are) arranged, and gender roles were very traditional.

Then again, my mother married a white American, so she shot most of those things to crap, haha. But I have some Indian friends whose parents, here, in this country, think that they're going to arrange marriages for them. (I think most of them have another thought coming. )

Compared to a setup like this, the choices that I face are absolutely staggering. When I think about that -- I feel like I can do anything. I kind of like that feeling -- I like the sense of opportunity. I'm not locked in to somebody else's model; I'm free to make my own way.

Could it be that a lot of the personal development people are pursuing in the West is not only a way of conscious growth but also a symptom of 'too much' choice?

Please don't misunderstand me here -- I am all for making conscious choices, but I'm at the same time concerned with how many choices we get as humans. Of course it sounds like giving up to just ask for the society to make choices for you, but can we get to a point where we are left with so much choice that it outguns our mental capability? Or can we just continue to question anything? Of course we can -- I do this myself, and many other people do too, but will it really make us more happy in the end?

I'm asking this as a question, I'm not trying to advocate that a conscious design of your own life it not good, because every logical part of my brain tells me that it is, but what I see and hear often tells me that it's not. I'm truly confused about it. (I'm still talking relationships and not other parts of life).

Sure, there have been studies done which show that the more choices a person has, the less likely they are to actually make a choice.

The important thing to realize in these situations is that statistics are meaningless at the individual level. What is stopping you from trying things out to see what works? Yourself, right? Are you afraid of failure? Life is about how well you bounce.

When I start to worry about all these choices, I listen to this song: "When you're learning to face the path at your pace, every choice is worth your while." -- Watershed, the Indigo Girls.