What do you want to be when you grow up?

A question that has tortured my childhood. Still have nightmares about it and is up there, in my top 5 of “stupidest question you can ask a human being”.

Why, you might ask. Simple, because the answer implies one of the following:

• the kid being interrogated has no idea what to say and therefore answers with what she notices that amuses the grown-ups;
• the kid has been brainwashed into thinking she wants to be something the grown-ups have told her she should be;
• the kid clangs to some fantasy in which her heroes take part aka “I want to be an astronaut”.

Only the last one is, in my humble opinion, a valid answer, but really, how can you expect a 5 year old to be able to tell you what the heck she will be doing in 15 or so years when even the task of tying the shoe laces seems insurmountable? And why should kids even bother with such thoughts?

But this is not about kids and this is not about what you want to do when you grow up, this, my friends, this is about the art of making up your mind, taking a decision, pursuing it and, at the very end, being happy.

My modest brain came to the conclusion, by ways of analysis of empirical data, that there is a direct link between knowing what you want and happiness.

The trick is the knowing what you want part. Some of the most interesting people I have had the honor of meeting in my short and so far not very useful existence are plagued by thoughts in the lines of ‘what is life’, ‘what is the purpose of life’ and so on. A polite way of saying they have no damn clue what they want from life, most of the times. I say most of the times because it’s clear you want your children to be happy, your family to be healthy. But when it comes to their own selves and their own decisions, this incredible people have no clue.

Many times it pays to look at what others think about a subject, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, and therefore, my dear reader, let’s look at what the wise people from our past have said about the matter and at what’s been distilled down into bits of wisdom known as sayings. So, time for some cheesy quotes.

You got Socrates saying “I know that I know nothing”, There is the saying “The more you learn the more you realize how little you know”. And there is the “The more you learn, the more you know. The more you know, the more you forget. The more you forget, the less you know. So why bother to learn” by George Bernard Shaw. And my two favorites “Ignorance is bliss” and the Romanian version “Fericit cel s?rac cu duhul”.

Alright, cheesy quotes aside you can’t dismiss the fact that some of the happiest people I’ve seen live in complete brain-washed dumbness, complaisant of their own stupid condition. Ignorance is truly bliss.

However, considering that banging your head against the wall to shave off some vital IQ points is not an option for you, than what is there to do when in doubt and when you have to decide taking option A or B?

Well, I can’t tell you that, but I can tell you what are my thoughts about the subject. This post is an introduction in a series of 7 posts about decision making and the related happiness that will do just that. It’s a subject that fascinates me, I believe it is very important, as knowing how to make decisions should help you be more satisfied with yourself and it’s such a interesting subject that I can’t help but be fascinated by it.

Before finishing this first post let me give you some food for thought. Watch this fascinating TED talk by Barry Schwartz called “The paradox of choice”.

This is basically a scientific proof of “ignorance is bliss”. Enjoy and read on!

P.S. This series of posts is dedicated to a very special friend