Website owner: James Miller
The problem of choosing from among several options
In life one is forever encountering the problem of having to choose from several options where each option has associated with it a number of pros and cons, pluses and minuses. Life consists of a long succession of continual decisions where each decision consists of picking between a number of options. (All of this presents problems for an indecisive type of person because he is unable to make decisions — it helps a lot if you are a decisive kind of person.). Many of these decisions are big and important. They can have big impacts on our life. Examples: the decision on a life partner or a decision on a career or on a job.
Examples. 1. If we wish to buy a house we must choose between a number of possible houses where each house has its positives and negatives (one may be close to work, another has a nice garage, another has a lot of closet space, etc.). 2. If we want to buy some groceries there may be a number of places where we can buy them and we need to make a decision on where to buy them. 3. If we have money that we have saved up we need to put it somewhere. We can hide it in a mattress, put it in a bank savings account, buy shares of some stock or stock fund, buy some kind of real estate, buy government bonds of some denomination, etc. but we must make some decision. The money has to be put somewhere.
Often the problem of picking from among the options is akin to the problem of having to pick between several baskets of fruit with one basket containing, say, 5 apples, 8 bananas, 3 pears, and 9 oranges; another basket containing 10 apples, 3 bananas, 10 pears, and 3 oranges; another containing 8 apples, 6 bananas, 2 pears, and 15 oranges; etc. The basket we pick depends on our personal preferences with regard to apples, bananas, pears, and oranges. There is no right choice.
Often the choices that we must choose from carry dangers or risks and we must access the dangers when making our decision. Examples. 1. In investing money one option may have potential for a huge return but also be highly risky (i.e. carry high danger for losing the capital). Another option may give a low return but with little risk of losing the capital. You have to decide which to pick. 2. You have to make a decision between several jobs. One job sounds really great, the work sounds enjoyable, the salary is high. But the job is not very secure. Another of the jobs pays much less, the work sounds mundane, but the job is very secure. Which job are you going to take? The choices you make will likely depend much on your personality. Some people are very bold and confident, very sure of themselves, and are risk-takers. Other people are very cautious, perhaps insecure, and are uninclined toward taking serious risks. (Some people go boldly out into the tiger-infested jungle in search of the gold they know is there. Others fear the danger and forgo the temptation.)
See
Many decisions involve choosing between alternative packages
Choosing the "best" from several possible alternatives
Feb 2020
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