by Sita

Created on: January 28, 2008   Last Updated: June 26, 2008

Every day we are faced with thousands of decisions, some of them simple, and some of them far more complex. Some may be trivial, like what color shirt to wear or what to eat for breakfast, while others are profound decisions that have the potential to change large portions of our lives. Sometimes, its even hard to tell which is which. Will deciding to take a different path to work change your life? Will you meet the person of your dreams because you chanced to go to a different grocery store or bar than usual? Will you win a million dollars on that scratch-off ticket? Some of these things are just chance, or luck, or are they?

Yet most of us think ourselves logical, and thus put a lot of thought into the choices we make. Still, sometimes we don't know what makes us decide. With any thoughts of fate, destiny, or luck aside, why we make certain choices, or why we have difficulty making choices, often has to do with how we feel we are supposed to act. Sociology declares that people live and are influenced by social norms, and to a large degree these are so embedded in us that we don't realize it. Yet at the same time, human beings have a certain selfishness, and this is often at contrast with what we feel, or know to be, the best for the family or other social group we are involved in.

Thus, making choices often comes down to person vs. group. Will what makes me happy also benefit us all as a whole? Kids and teenagers often do things they might not do on their own accord because of group norms, and though this is often taken to the negative and seen as an aspect of peer pressure, it can work in a positive way, too, such as the child that seeks good grades to stay on the sports team even though they struggle with school.

As they get older, children often rebel in an effort to search out their own identity, and yet even this rebellion tends to follow certain patterns- the breaking of rules, and the assertion of "I" over "them", or "you"- in which case the "you" is generally parents. There comes the realization of family or group norms as restrictive, but the ability to think logically and to one's full potential doesn't develop fully until a person is in their twenties, so often these choices aren't the best.

In adulthood is where the problems making decisions become the hardest, as suddenly we are faced with more and more responsibility, and the ability to think about how any individual choice influences many things instead of just one. Whereas as a teenager the

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