However, no matter what we choose to do, we could have done something else. In fact, when we decide to do this activity, there is a nearly infinite set of things we could have done, things we rejected knowingly or in ignorance. Within two days time, two energetic, intelligent and well-educated women said virtually the same thing:
"I really should read some of those life-changing and fascinating items. Dilemma: if I read THEM, then I can't do the other life-changing and fascinating things I get caught up in. Hmmmmmmmm." (Dr. Gyneth Slygh)
Our human and mortal limitations keep cropping up. We can't be in two places at once. Increasingly, research shows that even trying to pay attention to multiple screens or projects or variables makes performance on all the tasks suffer.Before we retired from jobs, we paid attention to the demands of the job. Now, without one, we have that durned freedom. It is good, but avoiding selection anxiety and selection regret isn't easy. The same fret can arise over career or marriage choice, in fact, over any choice we made. We made a great many and it is unlikely that all of them were optimal, with no errors in the set. Still, long-range choices that involved big commitments and decades may be easier to mentally label as "fate" or "over with and done". But starting a carpentry project or reading a novel feels more arbitrarily open to error. Maybe I should swim more instead of sawing or cook more instead of reading. Such questions can haunt us cogitators.
