In the movie Matrix, the Oracle offers candy to Neo.
Neo: "Do you already know if I'm going to take it?"
Oracle: "Wouldn't be much of an Oracle if I didn't"
Neo: "But if you already know, how can I make a choice?"
Oracle: "Because you didn't come here to make the choice. You've already made it. You're here to try to understand why you made it"
Such is the fallacy of choice. Many times, we intrinsically know what we would do in any situation. It may seem like we do not and that we must consciously choose the best option. What we don't realise is that we already know what we would choose and what we would do. We just need time to understand what choice we have already made and we seldom understand why we made that choice.
When we can think into what choice we have made and why we make those choices, we understand our own nature.
Choice is thus an illusion for our conscious mind. It is mostly our unconscious mind that makes the choices. To top it all, our unconscious mind is blind, mute and quick to action. So, our choices are often ill-advised and sometimes wrong.
It takes a lot of effort to realise that we made a choice without knowing, understand why that particular option was chosen and even more effort to consciously change those choices to what is beneficial to us.
So, the next time you made a poor choice and do not understand why, have some compassion on yourself. It was not really a choice that you made (pun intended).
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