Most Americans who grew up in the church will immediately think of moral boundaries or ethical behavior when reading this title, and we absolutely need those. That goes without saying. But I am more addressing the infinite possibilities that the world affords us today. I find this to be one of the most pressing personal challenges of almost every leader I work with in Europe, Asia and North America.
We have almost boundless choices and endless options. The possibilities that this creates for us in our work and life are astonishing. We love having choices. We can live amazing realities with all these choices. But all these exhausting options and flexibility is also The Problem. Because you have to CHOOSE. And if you choose poorly (to quote an Indiana Jones movie) you lose. You lose all the other possibilities and options that the other choices would have afforded you.
This, my friends, is the horrible conundrum of the modern world. So so so many choices . . . this we generally perceive as a great thing . . . but we have to choose, and this we generally perceive to be a bad thing.
There are in fact so many options, that I find ordering food at a restaurant in the States to be an extremely exhausting experience. And those aren’t even important choices! The choices I make about life and love and work and meaning and eternity are the critical ones, they convey all the significance of a life well lived, or all the regrets of one poorly lived.
As Eric Barker says, “You have to make a decision. The world will not draw the line. You must. You need to ask What do I want? Otherwise you’re only going to get what they want.”
We have almost boundless choices and endless options. The possibilities that this creates for us in our work and life are astonishing. We love having choices. We can live amazing realities with all these choices. But all these exhausting options and flexibility is also The Problem. Because you have to CHOOSE. And if you choose poorly (to quote an Indiana Jones movie) you lose. You lose all the other possibilities and options that the other choices would have afforded you.
This, my friends, is the horrible conundrum of the modern world. So so so many choices . . . this we generally perceive as a great thing . . . but we have to choose, and this we generally perceive to be a bad thing.
There are in fact so many options, that I find ordering food at a restaurant in the States to be an extremely exhausting experience. And those aren’t even important choices! The choices I make about life and love and work and meaning and eternity are the critical ones, they convey all the significance of a life well lived, or all the regrets of one poorly lived.
As Eric Barker says, “You have to make a decision. The world will not draw the line. You must. You need to ask What do I want? Otherwise you’re only going to get what they want.”
