Choosing a grain of sand in the desert – Making daily decisions with a multitude of options

"Sinah, have you finally decided what you'd like to eat? It can't be that difficult". I look silently at the menu in front of me. My conversation partner is probably right. It shouldn't be that hard for me. In the end, it should only be vegetarian, taste good, fill me up and be exactly what I'm craving right now. The longer I hesitate and think, the harder it becomes. In my head, various pros and cons lists form, which ultimately don't get me to my goal either. "Come on Sinah, I'll just order something for you". I sigh and nod. "I've decided", I murmur. "Finally", my conversation partner replies with rolled eyes and a slightly annoyed tone. We order and I simply choose something that will hopefully fill me up.
Decisions are part of our everyday life like air is to breathing. They encompass all parts of our lives, both within us and around us. Every day, whether consciously or unconsciously, people have to make an incredibly large number of decisions. According to an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, people make up to 100,000 decisions per day. This means they don't take much time for most of them. Whilst most decisions come easily to individuals through habit, others torment them over a longer period or even a whole lifetime. Each person has to struggle with different conflicts and worries. As a result, each person makes their decisions for different reasons. 
The food order in a restaurant may sound banal, but when it comes to choosing the right degree or training, one's life path and the people we want in our lives, then probably everyone feels internally torn from time to time. 
In order to make a difficult decision in the end, a large selection is usually more of a curse than a blessing. Before people's eyes, a gigantic chaos emerges instead of a systematic, structured order. In our present-day society and world, which is constantly differentiating and developing further, the diversity of possibilities is also constantly increasing. From this, one must ultimately be chosen from many different alternatives, like a very specific grain of sand in a desert full of sand.
Perhaps some of you, readers, will recognise yourselves in the following situations I have described.
The situation may be familiar to many: you want to relax, do nothing for the moment. On the screen appears in red letters on a black background "Netflix". If you're not in the middle of a series or want to watch something specific, the agony of choice begins. Forty years ago there were only 3 television channels. Then the decision was easy. Today people have what feels like an unlimited selection of options and possibilities. What genre do you want to watch, which actors, in which country should it be set and much more. Sometimes such a decision can really take a long time and create more stress than relaxation.
When making decisions, many different criteria are often considered. For example, the choice between public transport or car is not only about the duration of the journey or environmental protection. It's also about the cost factor, time management, the route and so on.
An important area of life in which the diversity of possibilities doesn't automatically bring happiness is the topic of "love, relationships, partner choice". Instead of just having the option of getting to know someone in person, there are nowadays an incredible number of apps and online portals to find the "dream partner". As a result, there are an overwhelming number of potential partners. Almost as if people were goods, more object than subject, they are compared particularly by appearance and considered interchangeable.
Every day politics makes decisions for or against which ordinary people can do nothing. Also in the field of medicine or when it comes to laws and their interpretation, people make decisions for others. These can be very burdensome. Both for the people who decide and for those who have to live with these decisions. Often there is also multidimensional external pressure to perform. This can occur on a social, temporal or political level, amongst other things.
Decisions are also made every day in the economy. The spectrum ranges from the big businessman who decides on money, goods and investments, to the individual who buys useful and useless things every day. Advertising is supposed to influence purchasing decisions from the outside. Whether the purchasing being ultimately actually decides completely freely of their own accord is probably questionable.

There are important decisions that should really be free for every person to make, yet others want to snatch them from their hands. Particularly when it comes to the human body, the whole world wants to have an opinion. "Abortion" is such a topic. Everyone wants to express their convictions about it. Often it is forgotten that no one can and should make this decision for a pregnant woman other than she herself. 
At some point in the course of life, many people face the decision of whether they want to bring their own children into this world or not. Nowadays, this is not a decision that depends solely on desire itself. Society, the financial situation, the living environment and life circumstances, family and professional status. Many factors come together in this decision. Regardless of whether children or not, all people must live and dwell somewhere and somehow. At some point, people thus face the decision of where and how they want to live: city or countryside, house or flat, central or close to nature, near family or where the best career opportunities beckon. The options appear virtually endless here, because every place is unique and offers different opportunities and difficulties.
Particularly the choice of studies and career are relevant topics for students. Everyone has already grappled with this. Usually it is not the case that people have only one perspective from birth that is pursued until the end of life. They all have ideas again and again, think about them, rack their brains and discard the initially so intoxicating thoughts over and over again. These vast numbers of possibilities are searched through in the quest for the right path. People search for happiness, career prospects and good salary opportunities. Everyone sets different priorities and lets their decision be influenced and guided by these. But eventually the individual makes a choice. This can be very difficult, because such a decision affects one's entire life in a certain way. Of course, nowadays many retraining courses and opportunities for career changers are offered. Apprenticeships can be broken off, new perspectives chosen. This means: changes are possible. Once decided, one direction does not have to determine the entire life. It is our decision. We can choose. 
Thus it becomes clear: our life consists of a multitude of possibilities and opportunities and, connected with this, always of decisions. This selection does not always make life easy for us, but our decisions make our life our own, individual, diverse and utterly unique life.
Decisions are indispensable from our lives. In a series of articles, I will engage with this topic in this and the following editions.